IEEE Access Special Section Editorial: Security and Reliability Aware System Design for Mobile Computing Devices

It is a well-known fact that design productivity is failing to keep pace with the big increase in the demands of applications and advanced silicon technology, especially in the domain of portable electronics. Moreover owing to the massive complexity of modern systems-on-chip (SoC), complete in-house development is impossible, and thus globalization of the design process has established itself as an inevitable solution for faster and efficient design. In this global design supply chain, the design of mobile computing devices relies heavily on reusable Intellectual Property (IP) cores as a practical solution. However, such IP cores are becoming increasingly vulnerable to malicious activities, attacks and threats. Any form of third party intervention in the design process can raise grave security concerns about the system. Security issues in IP’s can be in the form of IP piracy/IP counterfeit or embedded malicious logic or information leakage. The first form of security countermeasure requires anti-piracy methodologies that can nullify false claims of ownership or detect unauthorized pirated designs. The second form of threat, which is often called a ‘hardware Trojan’, is the deliberate insertion of illicit hardware into the IP design by a rogue designer or vendor, also requires detection/correction strategies as a security countermeasure.