7144703
Effective iterative techniques for fingerprinting design IP
Fingerprinting is an approach that assigns a unique and invisible ID to each sold instance of the intellectual property (IP). One of the key advantages fingerprinting-based intellectual property protection (IPP) has over watermarking-based IPP is the enabling of tracing stolen hardware or software. Fingerprinting schemes have been widely and effectively used to achieve this goal; however, their application domain has been restricted only to static artifacts, such as image and audio, where distinct copies can be obtained easily. In this paper, we propose the first generic fingerprinting technique that can be applied to an arbitrary synthesis (optimization or decision) or compilation problem and, therefore to hardware and software IPs. The key problem with design IP fingerprinting is that there is a need to generate a large number of structurally unique but functionally and timing identical designs. To reduce the cost of generating such distinct copies, we apply iterative optimization in an incremental fashion to solve a fingerprinted instance. Therefore, we leverage on the optimization effort already spent in obtaining previous solutions, yet we generate a uniquely fingerprinted new solution. This generic approach is the basis for developing specific fingerprinting techniques for four important problems in VLSI CAD: partitioning, graph coloring, satisfiability, and standard-cell placement. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the new fingerprinting-based IPP techniques on a number of standard benchmarks.
1532971
Relative Generic Computational Forensic Techniques
Computational forensic engineering is the process of identification of the tool or algorithm that was used to produce a particular output or solution by examining the structural properties of the output. We introduce a new Relative Generic Forensic Engineering (RGFE) technique that has several advantages over the previously proposed approaches. The new RGFE technique not only performs more accurate identification of the tool used but also provides the identification with a level of confidence. Additionally, we introduce a generic formulation (integer linear programming formulation) which enables rapid application of the RGFE approach to a variety of problems that can be formulated as 0-1 integer linear programs. 
 
The key innovations of the RGFE technique include the development of a simulated annealing-based (SA) CART classification technique and a generic property formulation technique that facilitates property reuse. We introduce instance properties which enable an enhanced classification of problem instances leading to a higher accuracy of algorithm identification. Finally, the single most important innovation, property calibration, interprets the value for a given algorithm for a given property relative to the values for other algorithms. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the RGFE technique on the boolean satisfiability (SAT) and graph coloring (GC) problems.
2985827
Flexible ASIC: shared masking for multiple media processors
ASIC provides more than an order of magnitude advantage in terms of density, speed, and power requirement per gate. However, economic (cost of masks) and technological (deep micron manufacturability) trends favor FPGA as an implementation platform. In order to combine the advantages of both platforms and alleviate their disadvantages, recently a number of approaches, such as structured ASIC/regular fabrics, have been proposed. Our goal is to introduce an approach that has the same objective, but is orthogonal to those already proposed. The idea is to implement several ASIC designs in such a way that they share the datapath, memory structure, and several bottom layers of interconnect, while each design has only a few unique metal layers. We identified and addressed two main problems in our quest to develop a CAD flow for realization of such designs. They are: (i) the creation of the datapath, and (ii) the identification of common and unique interconnect for each design. Both problems are solved optimally using ILP formulations. We assembled a design flow platform using two new programs and the Trimaran and Shade tools. We quantitatively analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the approach using the Mediabench benchmark suite.
195861616
Optimization-intensive watermarking techniques for decision problems
Recently, a number of watermarking-based intellectual property protection techniques have been proposed. Although they have been applied to different stages in the design process and have a great variety of technical and theoretical features, all of them share two common properties: they all have been applied solely to optimization problems and do not involve any optimization during the watermarking process. In this paper we propose the first set of optimization-intensive watermarking techniques for decision problems. In particular we demonstrate how one can select a subset of superimposed watermarking constraints so that the uniqueness of the signature and the likelihood of satisfying an instance of the satisfiability problem are simultaneously maximized. We have developed three watermarking SAT techniques: adding clauses, deleting literals, push-out and pull-back. Each technique targets different types of signature induced constraint superimposition on an instance of the SAT problem. In addition to comprehensive experimental validation, we theoretically analyze the potentials and limitations of the proposed watermarking techniques. Furthermore, we analyze the three proposed optimization-intensive watermarking SAT techniques in terms of their suitability for copy detection.
1221107
A probabilistic constructive approach to optimization problems
We propose a new optimization paradigm for solving intractable combinatorial problems. The technique, named Probabilistic Constructive (PC), combines the advantages of both constructive and probabilistic algorithms. The constructive aspect provides relatively short runtime and makes the technique amenable for the inclusion of insights through heuristic rules. The probabilistic nature facilitates a flexible trade-off between runtime and the quality of solution. In addition to presenting the generic technique, we apply it to the Maximal Independent Set problem. Extensive experimentation indicates that the new approach provides very attractive trade-offs between the quality of the solution and runtime, often outperforming the best previously published approaches.
1973000
Gateway placement for latency and energy efficient data aggregation [wireless sensor networks]
We propose the use of multiple gateways to significantly reduce latency and energy consumption in multi-hop wireless sensor networks during data aggregation. We have derived efficient integer linear programming formulations as well as a novel negative selection statistically-tuned heuristics. The heuristics are based on newly developed relaxation based lower bounds that are also used to quantify the effectiveness of the proposed heuristics. Our simulation study indicates that the use of gateways can often reduce latency and energy consumption by several times.
2968096
An effective erasure node algorithm for slot reuse in DQDB
The distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) protocol, which has been specified by the IEEE 802.6 as the metropolitan area networks (MANs) standard, has an undesirable feature that busy slots that have been already received (i.e. read) continue to propagate downstream unnecessarily. The use of special nodes, known as erasure nodes, allows conversion of read slots to empty, so that downstream nodes may reuse these slots. This should result in an increase of the total throughput of the network. In the paper, the authors introduce and evaluate the performance of an erasure node algorithm. The algorithm keeps track of past activities on both buses to effectively balance the slot erasure and the request cancellation functions. They show that this algorithm possesses a number of features which make it superior to existing algorithms.<<ETX>>
8573370
Core selection with end-to-end QoS support
Core-based routing with Quality of Service (QoS) support is essential to facilitate multi-sender multimedia multicast applications such as video conferencing and virtual collaboration applications. In this paper, we introduce (i) a new application-level service class framework that allows group members to easily indicate their desired service quality and (ii) the use of as many cores per group as necessary in corebased routing to maximize the number of group members with satisfied QoS requirements. Under the service class framework, we formulate the novel core selection problem that selects as many cores as necessary while maximizing the number of satisfied group members. We propose a new core selection algorithm to address the problem and provide a complete core selection protocol using the algorithm. Experimental results show that our core selection algorithm performs as well as the optimal algorithm and significantly outperforms a recent core selection algorithm with QoS support using a single core.
206921648
DQMA and CRMA: new access schemes for Gbit/s LANs and MANs
Distributed-queue multiple-access (DQMA) and cyclic-reservation multiple-access (CRMA) access schemes for gigabit-per-second local and metropolitan area networks are described. These schemes are based on a slotted unidirectional bus structure, with both folded and dual-bus configurations. Like the distributed-queue dual-bus (DQDB) scheme, both the DQMA and the CRMA access schemes achieve full throughput independent of network speed and distance. They have two significant advantages over DQDB. They provide throughput fairness even at high speeds and large distances, where DQDB exhibits dramatic unfairness, and, by allowing reservation of multiple consecutive slots, they make segment labeling unnecessary and facilitate packet reassembly significantly.<<ETX>>
45515179
Distributed real-time nested transactions
Abstract We present the concepts of real-time nested transactions and priority propagation for a distributed transaction processing environment. Real-time nested transactions incorporate the deadline requirements in the hierarchical structure of nested transactions. Priority propagation addresses issues related to transaction aborts in real-time nested transaction processing. The notion of priority ceiling has been used to avoid the priority inversion problem. The proposed protocols exhibit freedom from deadlock and have tightly bounded waiting periods. Both of these properties make them very suitable for distributed real-time transaction processing environments.
271858
Providing scalable on-demand video services for heterogeneous receivers
To provide scalable video-on-demand services, precious system bandwidth must be shared among video requests. Although many efficient bandwidth-sharing techniques have been proposed, they are all designed for homogeneous receivers, i.e., the clients are assumed to have the same receiving bandwidth. For networks with client heterogeneity, these techniques either cannot work or have to compromise their performance. In this paper, we address this problem and propose an efficient solution allowing each client to use its whole receiving bandwidth to download data. To serve a client, the server first selects a set of serving channels for the client according to its actual receiving bandwidth. The video data needed for this client are then scheduled and dynamically adjusted for delivery over these channels. We evaluate the performance of the new technique using simulation and compare it with an existing scheme. Our study shows that by effectively leveraging client heterogeneity, the new technique achieves significantly smaller service latency