Date of Award
12-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Electrical Engineering
Abstract
Hardware Trojans are covert modifications to integrated circuits that alter function or leak information while avoiding traditional verification. This thesis presented a simulation-based side-channel study of the AES-T1800 benchmark, utilizing power and timing analyses. The methodology aligned value change dump signals with waveform windows to correlate internal switching with external power signatures and compared timing slack distributions between a Trojan Free build and a Trojan Intruded build after implementation in the design tool.
Power analysis revealed a clear and repeatable fingerprint during Trojan activation. In filtered traces, the Trojan Free run rose from about 0.8×10⁻⁷ W to a steady level near 4.0×10⁻⁷ W with minimal short-term variability, while the Trojan Intruded run exhibited transient peaks and oscillations before settling with peaks near 5.0×10⁻⁷ W, which was roughly 20% to 25% above the steady baseline. These peaks aligned with windows where Trojan control and payload registers toggled in the simulation, providing a direct causal link between added internal switching and elevated instantaneous power and spectral energy. The uploaded graphs reflected these differences and supported automated metrics such as delta energy, transition count difference, and spectral contrast. Timing analysis quantified the effect on path delays but with lower practical sensitivity. For the same measured path set, the Trojan Free build showed a mean slack of ≈+1.020 ns with 0 failing paths and a minimum slack of ≈+0.024 ns. The Trojan Intruded build showed a mean slack of ≈−2.973 ns, worst slack of ≈−6.142 ns, and 20 failing paths. These results indicate a substantial regression in setup timing while hold timing remained safe, consistent with added combinational delay and longer nets.
The comparative conclusion from these timing and power studies is that both modalities indicated the presence of AES-T1800, but, power provided the stronger and more reliable detection signal under realistic variation and noise. The power method yielded a higher signal-to-noise ratio through localized, short-duration spikes and elevated energy, exactly coincident with Trojan activity, whereas timing shifts were smaller and more easily masked without strict environmental control. In this study, power was the superior primary method, and timing serves as a complementary check.
Index Terms—Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), simulation side channel, Trojan detection.
Committee Chair/Advisor
Suxia Cui
Committee Co-Chair
Akshay Kulkarni
Committee Member
Mohamed Chouikha
Publisher
Prairie View A&M University
Rights
© 2021 Prairie View A & M University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Date of Digitization
01/13/2026
Contributing Institution
J. B . Coleman Library
City of Publication
Prairie View
MIME Type
Application/PDF
Recommended Citation
Elkhazin, I. (2025). Comparative Evaluation Of Power And Timing Simulation-Based Side Channels For Hardware Trojan Detection. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-theses/1663