southampton

About

Editorship

Associate Editor of IEEE Access
Editor of IET Circuit, Devices and System Special Issue on Microelectronics Education, United Kingdom.
Editor of MPDI Micromachines, Special Issue on Hardware Supply Chain
Editor for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, United Kingdom

International Conferences Organisation

Orgnising Committe Member (European Liaison)of IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), United
Chair of the IEEE International Verification and Security Workshop (IVSW).
Program Theme Chair of the 11th IEEE European workshops on Microelectronics
Technical Program Committee member IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).
Technical Program Committee member IEEE Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference(DATE)
Technical Program Committee member IEEE Design, Automation Conference(DAC).
Technical Program Committee member of Microprocessor/SoC Test and Verification Workshop, United States
Technical program committee member of the international Microelectronics Olympiad,
Technical Program Committee Member of the IEEE International Conferences on Computer and Computational Sciences,
Technichal Program Committee Member of IEEE Asia and South Pacific Design Automation

Advisory Roles

External Examiner of the Engineering Faculty at University of the West of England,
PhD Exaniner in UK and international universities (e.g. Waterloo University, Canada, Newcastle University, UK)
Member of Synopsys Curricula Advisory Board, United
Member of the Hardware Security Working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Reviewer of numerous journals including :IEEE Transections on Computers , IEEE Transactions on VLSI, IEEE Transection on Circuits and Systems TCAS I, IEEE Transections on VLSI, IEEE Transection on Circuits and Systems TCAS II, Microelectronics

Invited Talks and Public Engagment

Invited Speaker Newcastle University, CMOS Aging Causes, Effects and Mitigations techniques, 2016.
Invited Speaker, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan Physically Unclonable Technologies for IoT security Applications,
Invited Speaker, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, On the Personalities of Electronics Systems and their Security Applications,
Embedded Tutorial , IEEE International Verification and Security Workshop (IVSW), Spain, Physically Unclonable Functions: Design Principles, Applications and Outstanding Challenges,

Invited Speaker, Newcastle University, On the Hardware Security of Resources Constrained Systems, 2018.

Invited Seminar, Intel Cooparation, United States , Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things ,
Invited Seminar, Intel Cooparation, United States , Physically Unclonable Functions:Applications and Outstanding Challenges,
Invited Seminar, Queen University in Belfast, Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things ,
Invited Speaker, University of Liverpool, Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things

, 2018.

Invited Speaker, University of York, On the Hardware Security of Resources Constrained Systems, 2019.
Invited Speaker, The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), Securing Hardware Supply Chain with an Unforgeable Root of Trust, University of Sussex, 2020
Invited Speaker, Hardware-based Security Solutions for the Internet of Things, 25th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference, Beijing, China,
Invited Speaker
Invited Speaker Hardware Supply Chain Security: Threats and Defences, Synopsys Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2021.
Invited Speaker Emerging Hardware Security Defences, Synopsys Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2022.
Invited Speaker AVT-337 Research Workshop on Anti-tamper protective systems for NATO operations, 2021
Invited Speaker at the Third Party Supply Chain Security Summit, Amsterdam, 2022.

Visiting Academic Posts

Visiting Researcher at Khalifa University, UAE on Hardware-based Security Solutions for the Internet of 2016
Visiting Professor at the Kazakh-British Technical University on Embedded Systems Design and IoT Technologies, 2017.
Visiting Scholar Technical University of Kaiserslautern on Hardware Security Technical University of Kaiserslautern, 2017-Now

Visiting Scholar at the University of Turin, Itlay on Cryptographic systems and algorithms 2022-now

Research

Research groups

Member of:

Current research

Hardware Security

The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of numerous inter-connected resource-constrained devices such as sensors nodes and actuators, which are linked to the Internet. By 2020 it is anticipated that the IoT paradigm will include approximately 20 billion connected devices. The interconnection of such devices provides the ability to collect a huge amount of data for processing and analysis. A significant portion of the transacted data between IoT devices is private information, which must not in any way be eavesdropped on or tampered with. Such devices typically have limited area and energy resources, which makes the use of classic cryptography prohibitively expensive. Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are a class of novel hardware security primitives that promise a paradigm shift in many security applications; their relatively simple architecture can answer many of the security challenges of energy-constrained IoT devices. I am working on developing hardware-based security solutions for resource-constrained IoT devices using physically Unclonable functions and hardware monitoring schemes.

Reliability and Fault Tolerance Techniques

Aggressive technology scaling has aggravated a number of reliability problems, particularly the aging of CMOS devices. This is caused by several mechanisms, namely: Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) is usually considered as the primary reliability concern in modern technologies, it is characterized by a positive shift in the absolute value of the threshold voltage of MOS devices, which leads to an increase in the propagation delay of various components in System-on-Chips over time. If this performance degradation exceeds circuit time margins, it may lead to system failure, thus reducing its long-term reliability. Other reliability problems include crosstalk noise and radiation. I am working on developing a range of solutions enhance the resiliency of CMOS circuits against these various reliability problems. To reduce the impact of ageing; I am looking into the use of ageing prediction sensors, circuit-level mitigating techniques and ageing aware synthesis. My work also includes developing radiation hardened designs and enhancing the reliability of on chip communications

Research projects

Completed projects

SECUR

Researchers:

Doctor Basel Halak

Sponsor: Royal Academy of Engineering

Securing Hardware Supply Chain With an Unforgeable Root of Trust

Researchers:

Doctor Basel Halak

Sponsor: Royal Academy of Engineering

Publications

108 publications

Page 4 of 11

Ageing-aware logic synthesis

Shengyu Duan, Mark Zwolinski & Basel Halak, 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-23781-3_5

Type: bookChapter

Aging mitigation techniques for microprocessors using anti-aging software

Haider Muhi Abbas, Mark Zwolinski & Basel Halak, 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-23781-3_3

Type: bookChapter

A reliable PUF in a dual function SRAM

Mohd Syafiq Mispan, Shengyu Duan, Basel Halak & Mark Zwolinski, 2019, Integration , 68, 12-21

DOI: 10.1016/j.vlsi.2019.06.001

Type: article

A reliable PUF in a dual function SRAM

Mohd Syafiq Mispan, Shengyu Duan, Basel Halak & Mark Zwolinski, 2019, Integration, the VLSI Journal, 68, 12-21

DOI: 10.1016/J.VLSI.2019.06.001

Type: article

VLSI implementation of a fully-pipelined K-best MIMO detector with successive interference cancellation

Ibrahim Bello, Basel Halak, Mohammed El-Hajjar & Mark Zwolinski, 2019, Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing, 1-23

DOI: 10.1007/s00034-019-01079-0

Type: article

A cost-efficient error-resilient approach to distributed arithmetic for signal processing

Yue Lu, Shengyu Duan, Basel Halak & Tom J. Kazmierski, 2019, Microelectronics Reliability, 93, 16-21

DOI: 10.1016/j.microrel.2018.12.007

Type: article

A variation-aware design methodology for distributed arithmetic

Yue Lu, Shengyu Duan, Basel Halak & Tom Kazmierski, 2019, Electronics (Switzerland), 8(1), 1-12

DOI: 10.3390/electronics8010108

Type: article

Cell flipping with distributed refresh for cache ageing minimization

Shengyu Duan, Basel Halak & Mark Zwolinski, 2018

DOI: 10.1109/ATS.2018.00029

Type: conference

Lifetime reliability-aware digital synthesis

Shengyu Duan, Mark Zwolinski & Basel Halak, 2018, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, 26(11), 2205-2216

DOI: 10.1109/TVLSI.2018.2861820

Type: article

A machine learning attacks resistant two stage physical unclonable functions design

Haibo Su, Mark Zwolinski & Basel Halak, 2018

DOI: 10.1109/IVSW.2018.8494839

Type: conference

Teaching

Teaching Activies at Southampton

Secure Hardware Design

I lead this master-level module, it cover security and trust from hardware prespectives.It also discusses the vulnerabilities of modern Systems on Chip design flow and how these can become legitimate security threats such as hardware trojans and physical attacks.

Cryptography

I lead this master-level module, it covers the mathematics, techniques, and applications of modern cryptography, it also covers the history of code making and code breaking, and draw lessons for the future from the mistakes and successes of the past.

Digital IC and Systems Design

I teach this third year module, it provides a coherent introduction to digital VLSI design in CMOS, and to give students a broad understanding of the main principles required for system-on-chip design. Advanced techniques such as timing analysis and asynchronous design are also introduced..

International Teaching Activities

ELEC2221 Digital Systems and Signal Processing at University of Southampton Malaysia Campus

I have tought the digital design part on this second year course, it introduces techniques of designing robust, testable sequential digital systems, writing and debugging synthesisable modules in a hardware description language (SystemVerilog) and verifying the functionality of those modules by simulation. It provides practical experience in the design and diagnosis of sequential digital systems.

Embedded Systems Design and IoT Technologies: Kazakh-British Technical University

I led this master-level module, it covers the principels of Embedded Systems Design with particular focus on relevant computer architectures such as those by ARM and MIPS.

Introduction on Embedded Systems Security: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany

I led this master-level module, it covers the the principles of designing secure embedded systems with reference to new emerging industrial design framework such as ARM PSA and gives detailed information on emerging security premitives such as physically unclonable functions, it aslo covers a number of related topics including Hardware Trojan and IC-counterfiet.

Hardware-based Security Solutions for the Internet of Things: IEEE Tutorial at Khalifa University, UAE

This tutorial discusses the design challenges of secure IoT systems and how to use hardware security to tackle those challenges, it also explains explain the design principles of Physically Unclonable Functions.

External roles and responsibilities

Name: PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Role: Participant

Year: 2011 - 2022

Biography

Dr Basel Halak is the director of the embedded systems and IoT program at the University of Southampton, a visiting scholar at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern ,a visiting professor at the Kazakh-British Technical University, an industrial fellow of the royal academy of engineering , and a national teaching fellow of the Advance Higher Education(HE) Academy . Dr Halak's publications include over 80-refereed conference and journal papers, and authored three books, including the first textbook on Physically Unclonable Functions. His research expertise include evaluation of security of hardware devices, development of appropriate countermeasures, the development of mathematical formalisms of reliability issues in CMOS circuits (e.g. crosstalk, radiation, ageing), and the use of fault tolerance techniques to improve the robustness of electronics systems against such issues.. Dr Halak lectures on digital design, Secure Hardware and Cryptography, supervises a number of MSc and PhD students, and is the ECS Exchange Coordinators. He is also leading European Masters in Embedded Computing Systems (EMECS) , a two year course run in collaboration with Kaiserslautern University in Germany and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (electronics and communication). Dr Halak serves on several technical program committees such as HOST, IEEE DATE, DAC, IVSW, ICCCA, ICCCS, MTV and EWME. He is an associate editor of IEEE access and an editor of the IET circuit devices and system journal. He is also a member of the hardware security-working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Prizes

National Teaching Fellow Advance(HE) Higher Education (2020)
Industrial Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering (2019)
The Vice-Chancellor Teaching Award (2016)
National Teaching Fellow Advance(HE) Higher Education United Kingdom (2020)
Industrial Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering (2019)
The Vice-Chancellor Teaching Award (2016)
National Teaching Fellow Advance(HE) Higher Education United Kingdom (2020)
Industrial Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering (2019)
The Vice-Chancellor Teaching Award (2016)

Dr Basel Halak

Connect with Basel

About

Research

Research groups

Current research

Research projects

Completed projects

Publications

Teaching

External roles and responsibilities

Biography

Prizes