Program Overview

Course Overview

The course FIL3030, Hardware Security, is a 7.5 credit course offered at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Information per Course Offering

Termin

The course is offered in the Spring 2026 term, starting on January 13, 2026, and ending on March 13, 2026.

Course Details

• Course location: KTH Campus
• Duration: January 13, 2026 - March 13, 2026
• Periods: Spring 2026: P3 (7.5 hp)
• Pace of study: 50%
• Application code: 10540
• Form of study: Normal Daytime
• Language of instruction: English

Course Syllabus

Content and Learning Outcomes

The course covers the following topics:

• Physical Attacks and Tamper Resistance
• Side Channel Attacks and Countermeasures
• Introduction to Lightweight Cryptography
• Security of Smartcards and Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) Tags
• Design of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and True Random Number Generators (TRNGs)
• Personal integrity in the IoT era

The aim of this course is to give doctoral students the knowledge necessary to develop secure systems. Upon completion, students will be able to:

• Describe state-of-the-art hardware security techniques and their targeted applications and limitations
• Describe the threats to a system from the hardware perspective as well as available countermeasures
• Analyze and critically assess trade-offs between system performance, cost, and security
• Explain the need for hardware security primitives and justify pros and cons of different primitives
• Apply the knowledge to design a small electronic or embedded system with enhanced security

Literature and Preparations

Specific Prerequisites

Admitted as doctoral student.

Literature

M. Tehranipoor and C. Wang. Introduction to Hardware Security and Trust. Springer, 2012.

Examination and Completion

Grading Scale

P, F

Examination

The examination consists of:

• Two labs (20%, grade pass/fail), 1.5 hp
• A final exam (40%, grade A, B, C, D, E, FX, F), 3 hp
• A research project and its presentation (40%, grade pass/fail), 3 hp

To pass, all components of the examination must be completed.

Examiner

Elena Dubrova

Ethical Approach

All members of a group are responsible for the group's work. In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used. In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.

Further Information

Offered by

EECS/Electronics and Embedded Systems

Education Cycle

Third cycle

Postgraduate Course

Postgraduate courses at EECS/Electronics and Embedded Systems