Secure Path Balanced BDD-Based Pre-Charge Logic for Masking

This work presents a novel path balanced masked dual-rail pre-charge circuit design scheme based on binary decision diagrams (BDD), using one mask bit per output. It has been applied for achieving masked implementations of two common lightweight ciphers, namely Present and Lucifer. BDD based logic design is achieved using the CUDD tool and applying suitable variable reordering techniques. Path balancing has helped to counter the early propagation effect (EPE) to achieve a glitch free circuit design. Non-linear shift register has been used to generate the mask bits to avoid prediction of the mask bit, even if those should be occasionally uncovered. The design has been evaluated on many aspects such as glitch attack resistance, correlation / differential power analysis attack resistance, peak power variance, etc. and found to have satisfactory circuit performance while being highly robust to side channel attacks.