Watermarking-based copyright protection of sequential functions

Watermarking is proposed as a means to protect intellectual property contents of electronic systems from copyright infringement. The technique consists of implanting indelible stamps in the circuit's inner structure, while not disrupting its functionality or degrading its performance. In this paper a novel method is proposed for the creation of watermarks in regular sequential functions operating on finite input/output sets. This is an important class of circuits, as it is the basis of most digital controllers. Algorithms are proposed for implanting and detecting watermarks so as to minimize implementation overhead for a specified level of robustness.

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