Tortuga Logic : to Develop Novel Hardware Security Solutions with Support from DARPA Program

Tortuga Logic, a hardware security company with technology that identifies security vulnerabilities in semiconductor designs, today announced that it has received a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop additional hardware security solutions. Specifically, this effort is based around integrating Tortuga Logic’s patented hardware security models with commercial emulation platforms, which are electronic systems used by hardware designers in the final stages of verification to fully test an entire chip design running a full software stack. The resulting products are intended to be used by hardware designers to enhance their ability to find security vulnerabilities in their designs prior to chip fabrication or Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) deployment. The project will be led by Dr. Jason Oberg, Tortuga Logic’s CEO and co-founder.

“More than ever, hardware designers need solutions to identify security vulnerabilities throughout the chip design lifecycle, rather than post-fabrication or post-deployment. This contract with DARPA will allow Tortuga Logic to integrate our patented information flow technology with commercial emulation platforms, completing a full end-to-end design suite dedicated to security verification,” says Dr. Oberg.

As part of the effort, participants of the DARPA “System Security Integrated Through Hardware and Firmware” (SSITH) program will receive early access to the resulting security solution for emulation platforms. The goal of the SSITH program is to develop hardware design architectures and techniques to strengthen the security of systems used in commercial and defense electronic applications. Tortuga Logic’s current product line and the aforementioned security solution for emulation platforms will be made available to enhance the work performed by all SSITH participants.

Tortuga Logic’s current product line consists of two software suites, entitled Prospect and Unison. Both products have been adopted within the semiconductor industry, as well as the Aerospace and Defense industry. Now, Tortuga Logic is focusing on extending their product portfolio the aforementioned security solution for emulation platforms. While the research and resultant product can be ported to any commercial emulation platform, the project will use the Palladium platform from Cadence Design Systems. The project will also utilize the emerging RISC-V processor architecture and sample design for initial prototyping and testing. RISC-V is gaining popularity in many market verticals and will be used as the baseline design for many of the SSITH participants, making it a suitable architecture to validate the functionality of the final security emulation platform.

Managing the technical effort is Tortuga Logic’s recently appointed VP of Engineering Andrew Dauman. As a former Vice President at Synopsys, Inc., he was in charge of the development of several FPGA products including the Synplify family of FPGA synthesis tools, as well as the HAPS FPGA-based prototyping systems.

Tortuga’s security solution for emulation platforms will be available for purchase later this year.

About Tortuga Logic:

Tortuga Logic is a hardware security company offering a suite of security verification platforms to reduce the effort spent identifying security vulnerabilities in modern semiconductor designs. Founded by experts in hardware security, Tortuga Logic’s patented technology augments the industry standard verification tools to enable a secure development lifecycle (SDL) for modern semiconductor designs. For more information, please visit http://www.tortugalogic.com/

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