The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) announced nine research awards to 10 universities totaling nearly $4 million to develop Secure, Trustworthy, Assured, and Resilient Semiconductors and Systems (STARSS).
The STARSS program is part of a $75 million cyber security effort by the NSF, aimed at making chips immune from being exploited by hackers who take advantage of hidden Trojan horses that are intentionally or unintentionally inserted into chips by intellectual property (IP). The goal is to also make it easier to spot counterfeit chips, chips that have been tampered with, and used chips being passed off as new.
For more information about this program and the nine awards, see this press release.
In January 2013, The Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Computing Community Consortium (CCC), organized a workshop that started conversations between academic and industry experts from both the programming language and semiconductor design/manufacture communities. The workshop produce this white paper.