Residual Structural Traces in Logic Locking: Insights From Redundancy Analysis and Beyond

The integrated circuit (IC) supply chain has undergone a profound transformation over the past two decades, propelled by escalating manufacturing complexity, rising fabrication facility costs, and the imperative for rapid time-to-market. To address these pressures, the semiconductor industry has adopted a horizontally distributed business model in which companies strategically outsource design, fabrication, and testing stages to specialized entities worldwide. This globalized approach delivers significant gains in production efficiency and cost-effectiveness, yet simultaneously exposes the supply chain to serious security vulnerabilities. Foremost among these are intellectual property piracy, overproduction, and reverse engineering, each posing substantial threats to the proprietary designs and technological advancements in which companies invest heavily. Figure 1 illustrates the principal stages and stakeholders in the IC design and manufacturing pipeline, together with the corresponding security threats at each stage. These realities make it imperative to establish robust trust mechanisms across the global supply chain to safeguard innovation and ensure the continued viability of this distributed production model.