Instruction-level power consumption simulator for modeling simple timing and power side channels in a 32-bit RISC-V micro-processor

Abstract

We create a Python based RISC-V simulator that is capable of simulating any assembly code written in RISC-V, and even perform simple power analysis of RISC-V designs. The power consumption of non-privileged RISC-V RV32IM instructions are measured experimentally, forming the basis for our simulator. These instructions include memory loads and stores, PC jumps and branches, as well as arithmetic instructions with register values. The object-oriented simulator also supports stepping and debugging. In the context of designing software for hardware use, the simulator helps assess vulnerability to side channel attacks by accepting input power consumption values. The power consumption graph of any disassembled RISC-V code can be obtained if the power consumption of each instruction is given as an input; then, from the output power consumption waveforms, we can assess how vulnerable a system is to side channel attacks. Because the power values can be customized based on what's experimentally measured, this means that our simulator can be applied to any disassembled code and to any system as long as the input power consumption of each instruction is supplied. Finally, we demonstrate an example application of the simulator on a pseudorandom function for simple side channel power analysis.