Special Issue: Trustworthy Microelectronics

Aims and Scope

Microelectronic systems face unique challenges concerning integrity and confidentiality due to the horizontal semiconductor supply chain. Malicious entities within the supply chain can compromise microelectronic systems through hard-to-detect malicious modifications (hardware Trojans) and reverse engineer the designs leading to intellectual property (IP) theft. Security measures such as logic locking and PUFs have been proposed to mitigate some of these challenges but the problems are far from being solved. Additionally, while deployed, these microelectronics systems/devices are also vulnerable to threats such as those originating from physical tampering and side-channel attacks. Existing vulnerabilities in the hardware and the system architecture can also get exploited by remote hosts, increasing the severity of these threats. Modern cyber-physical systems and embedded systems with tight hardware-software coupling have also led to the rise of unique cross-layer vulnerabilities that are extremely hard to detect and fix. Smart grids also face severe cybersecurity threats that can lead to irreversible power outages affecting millions of lives. Hardware implementation of AI (both in ASIC and FPGA) has become extremely popular and widely used. But compromised AI hardware can severely hamper public safety and lead to catastrophic financial losses due to the applications they serve (autonomous cars, safety systems).

Topics of Interest

This special issue will highlight high-impact works geared towards securing microelectronic systems across diverse domains and will cover topics such as (but not limited to):

● Security primitives (e.g., PUFs and TRNGs)

● Architectural Security, Trusted platform modules, and hardware virtualization

● Side-channel Aware System Design

● Hardware Trojans and Countermeasures

● Internet of Things (IoT) Security, FPGA security

● Reverse engineering, logic locking, hardware obfuscation

● Cyber-physical system (CPS) security, Hardware-Software Co-Security

● Supply chain security and Trusted Manufacturing

● Emerging Threats: Security of AI Hardware, Smart Grid Security

IMPORTANT DATES:

This special issue will accept two types of submissions: (1) Regular papers with technical contributions – 14 Pages Maximum and (2) Review papers – 20 Pages Maximum. Additionally, the submissions should follow standard guidelines associated with the Journal of Hardware and Systems Security.

● Open for Submissions: Jan 10 2023

● Submission of Paper: April 10 2023

● Initial Review: May10 2023

● Revised Manuscript Due: June 10 2023

● Final Decision and Review: July10 2023

● Camera Ready Due: July 31 2023

● Tentative publication: November

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Prospective authors are invited to submit their manuscripts electronically after the “open for submissions” date, adhering to the Journal of Hardware and Systems Security guidelines (https://www.springer.com/journal/41635/submission-guidelines). Please submit your papers through the online system (https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/41635/3) and be sure to select the special issue or special section name. Manuscripts should not be published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere. Please submit only full papers intended for review, not abstracts, to the portal.