A decompiler for digital microelectronics.
There are many reasons why original source code needs to be lifted back out of a completed hardware design. Competing methods are expensive, time consuming, or terribly incomplete -- providing an incomprehensible raw netlist requiring enormous resources to understand. Allow Deep Lift to do the heavy lifting and recover the human readable high level source, quickly and cost effectively.
Architectural Diagrams
Deep Lift can take a netlist recovered from any point in the supply chain and very quickly represent them in the form of block diagrams for rapid understanding and assurance.
Cyber Assurance
Deep Lift can take a design and recover high level hardware design language. This code can be used in conjunction with other Chip Scan assurance capabilities such as ESPY for discovery of functionality that does not belong there.
Legacy Modernization
Deep Lift can take older, no longer manufactured legacy chips and lift the complete functional design back to code that can then be safely modernized and retargeted to currently available manufacturing processes and FPGAs.
What is Deep Lift?
Deep Lift is a decompiler for digital microelectronics that installs in the form of an on-premises appliance.
It is the first deep introspection tool that allows high level source to be recovered automatically, quickly and cost effectively in support of security assurance, patent litigation examination, counterfeit and tamper detection, post-production functional verification and more.
Process
The prerequisite for the Deep Lift process begins with a recovered raw netlist. From the raw netlist, Deep Lift quickly identifies structures and connectivity necessary to expose design information and high level source code.
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Competitive Analysis and Education
When planning new products, it's important to consider the competitive landscape and understand the challenges and risks involved before committing to developing a new microelectronics product. Real knowledge of competitive implementations and their functional structure is more valuable than public marketing information and data sheets provided by competitors.
High level code extraction
Recovery of function blocks and flow diagrams
Understanding of full and hidden capabilities
Understanding of competitive weaknesses
Patent and IP Theft Support
Intellectual property can take years of concerted effort to develop. While many companies are fabless and comparatively small, their IP are licensed or included as part of other products. Whether patent protections are in place or not, the reverse engineering requirements are so onerous that if these IP blocks are stolen, verbatim or in-part, it's almost never discovered. Chip designers using modern toolchains and multilayered chips can easily obfuscate IP blocks against visual identification. Deep Lift cuts through all of that and pulls out the salient information.
Patent licensing benchmarking and enforcement
IP theft analysis
Patent litigation support
De-obfuscation and extraction of design information
Security & Assurance
Assurance answers the question of whether the chip that you fabricated is actually the chip you designed. Has it been tampered with? Is there additional functionality added after the fact? Are there counterfeit parts that use inferior IP?
Extract a functional block diagram for comparison to an original.
Extract high level code for manual review
Extract high level code for use in automated assurance tools
As a Zero Trust test stage to validate the CM/Fab partner.
Deployment
Deep Lift is designed with privacy and security in mind. The technology is self-contained and built into the Deep Lift appliance without need for Internet connectivity. The appliance is meant to be racked up on-premises in a standard rack. Once the reversed design is ready, your engineers can transport the material in continuation of your goals.
Learn more about Deep Lift
Learn more about how Deep Lift can help you with your legacy modernization efforts, cyber assurance or reverse engineering work.
Technical Specifications
Input Formats
Raw extracted digital netlist
Functional Block Diagram
Yes
Recover High Level Source
Verilog
Visualize Basic Blocks
Yes
FPGA Bitstream Analysis
Yes
ASIC Analysis
Currently requires a third party to recover the initial netlist
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about the Deep Lift.
Is it legal to reverse engineer my own design?
Yes, it is considered good security practice to place your own design under test, recover a design back to source code for functional comparison, security assurance and deeper technical understanding.
Can Deep Lift be used to understand third party designs?
Yes, it is legal under U.S. Law to use reverse engineering methods for understanding. In fact, under certain circumstances, it is the only method available during legal cases to determine whether a chip violates another party's patents. Using Deep Lift for technical understanding is allowable under federal law.
Does Deep Lift allow access to hardware trade secrets?
Yes, the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) prohibits misappropriation of trade secrets by acquiring them through improper means, such as theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach, or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy, or espionage through electronic or other means. The DTSA further declares that use of reverse engineering is not an improper means. However, combining a legal method such as Deep Lift with an illegal method such as theft whereby Deep Lift is used to analyze stolen material is strictly not allowed.
Can Deep Lift be used to discover stolen or counterfeit IP?
Yes, once IP is integrated into an FPGA, it is often difficult to detect stolen IP without enormous expense and time. Furthermore, counterfeiters may insert a low percentage of fake chips to evade detection. In both these cases, Deep Lift offers a capability to extract a design and perform an authenticity comparison with the original part.
Is Deep Lift useful for legacy modernization?
Yes, a legacy part is typically not made anymore. Low volume parts, such as aerospace and defense parts that must be sustained are particularly susceptible to diminishing supply and all the problems that entails. With older parts, the original designs may be lost, and the original teams and companies may no longer exist. In cases like this, restoring the chip design back to high level code that can be improved to modern standards and retargeted to new processes is a best outcome.
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Other products we offer
Chip Scan offers proven complementary tools and capabilities for protecting the various layers of your hardware systems.
ESPY Prequal Appliance
Discover stealthy undocumented functionality in your designs including hardware trojans, backdoors and other vulnerabilities.
YOLO
Protect your operational technology (OT) systems against modern cyber attacks.