Zain Ul Abideen
Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Idaho
Tel: (+1) 208 885 1291
Email: zabideen@uidaho.edu
Expertise: Hardware Security, ASIC/Chip Design, VLSI/CAD, and Reliable Digital Design
Introduction
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Idaho. Before joining the University of Idaho, I was a researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. I completed my Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technology at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia.
My research centers on the trust and security of integrated circuits, spanning chip design, system integrity, and privacy. Current research interests include:
- Trustworthy IC design
- Security-aware electronic design automation (EDA)
- Reverse engineering and countermeasures
- Circuit obfuscation and IP protection
- Post-quantum cryptographic accelerators
- Security primitives, including PUFs and TRNGs
- Reliable and fault-tolerant digital design
- ML/AI-assisted chip design
- Secure quantum computing
I welcome inquiries from highly motivated students and researchers whose interests align with the lab. For Ph.D. inquiries, use the email subject Ph.D. Application - First Name Last Name and include your CV, transcripts, research interests, and a brief explanation of fit.
Ph.D. applicants: Review the University of Idaho graduate admissions information before contacting me.
B.S./M.S. students: Contact me early to discuss possible research topics.
News
July 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the IEEE Asian International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (AsianHOST).
July 2026 - Congratulations to Alcorn Lloyd for winning the GREAT (gen-AI Red-Team Evaluation of Microelectronics Assurance and Trust) competition at DAC.
July 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).
July 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES).
July 2026 - Our paper on a fault-tolerant modular arithmetic logic unit for post-quantum cryptography has been accepted at ICCAD 2026.
May 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the USENIX Symposium on Vehicle Security and Privacy (VehicleSec 2026).
April 2026 - Recommended reading on IP security using universal circuits for obfuscation: Universal Circuits-Based Obfuscation.
April 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).
April 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI).
March 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for the IEEE International Conference on LLM-Aided Design.
February 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for New England Hardware Security Day.
January 2026 - I will be serving as a TPC member for DAC 2026.
December 2025 - Our paper was nominated for the best paper award at AsianHOST 2025.
September 2025 - Our new paper on the QR-UOV signature scheme was completed in collaboration with Queen's University Belfast.
June 2025 - I joined the University of Idaho as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Fall 2025.
May 2025 - Our paper on the security evaluation of reconfigurable-based obfuscation appeared at DATE 2025. Read the paper.
January 2025 - My book on FPGA-like obfuscation was published. View the book.
June 2024 - Our survey paper on FPGA-inspired obfuscation appeared in ACM Computing Surveys.
January 2024 - The full text of my doctoral thesis is available here.
September 2023 - I received the runner-up award in the Student Research Competition at ESWEEK 2023. View the award listing.
August 2023 - Our preprint reports results from a fabricated SRAM-PUF chip: SRAM bias study.
February 2023 - Our paper on LUT-based obfuscation appeared in IEEE TCAD.
February 2023 - News coverage of the HeLLo CTF 2022 competition is available here.
February 2023 - Our team won the HeLLo CTF 2022 competition. The presentation is available here.
May 2022 - Giorgi Basiashvili defended his thesis, “Hardware Digital Obfuscation.” Read the thesis.
September 2020 - A preprint on flexible design obfuscation is available here.
Publications
Current publication records and citation information are available through the following profiles.
Grants
The lab is building a sponsored-research portfolio in trustworthy computing, secure chip design, and cryptographic hardware.
UI College of Engineering research support
Awards and Honors
- AsianHOST 2025 Best paper award nomination
- Volunteer Organizing committee member for the CSAW Europe cybersecurity competition (2019)
- HeLLo CTF 2022 First place in the global hardware security competition
- ACM SIGBED SRC Runner-up award at ESWEEK 2023
Courses
- ECE 4040/5040 Introduction to Hardware Security (Fall 2026). Official course materials are provided in Canvas.
- ECE 4040/5040 Advanced VLSI and SoC Design (Spring 2026). Official course materials are provided in Canvas.
- ECE 2120 Electrical Circuits II (Fall 2025). Official course materials are provided in Canvas.
Designed Chips
- TalTech PUF TSMC 65 nm low-power chip for evaluating SRAM-based PUFs
- SCALLER TSMC 65 nm general-purpose chip for evaluating ring oscillators
- hASIC Tapeout-ready layouts for obfuscated AES-128, SHA-256, and RISC-V designs
Advising and Mentoring
- Samroz Ahmad Shoaib Ph.D. student, Electrical Engineering, ongoing
- Abdur Rehman Ph.D. student, Electrical Engineering, ongoing
- Alcorn Lloyd Undergraduate researcher, Electrical Engineering, ongoing
- Hepziba Susan Undergraduate researcher, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ongoing
- Sivaranjini Chandramouli Undergraduate researcher, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ongoing
- Frances Adiwijaya Undergraduate research project, completed
- Giorgi Basiashvili M.S. in Computer Engineering, completed 2022
- Muhammad Asfand Hafeez Undergraduate research project, completed 2021
Seminars and Talks
- IEEE WMED Panel remarks on “Hardware Innovation in the Era of AI: Memory, Computing, and Security”
- MDTS 2025 Panel moderation on “AI Power and Security Impacts: Wide-Bandgap, RF, Power Electronics, and Chiplets”
- University of Birmingham Invited talk on “Pushing the Boundaries of IP Piracy with Reconfigurable-Based Obfuscation”
- Aalto University, Finland Invited talk on “Memory Hierarchy and Performance Considerations”
- Auburn University Invited talk on “Robustness Evaluation of SRAM-Based PUFs”
- California State University, Northridge Invited talk on “Modern Data-Hazard Techniques in Pipelined Processors”
- UMass Dartmouth Invited talk on “The Security Landscape of the Globalized IC Supply Chain in the Era of AI”
- SAFEST Workshop Talk on reconfigurable-based obfuscation
- IEEE AsianHOST Talk on FDOME, a flexible design-obfuscation method for embedded ASICs
- SMART4ALL Talk on evaluating the robustness of SRAM-based PUFs
Contact
POSTAL ADDRESS
Zain Ul AbideenDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Idaho
875 Perimeter Drive MS 1023
Moscow, ID 83844-1023, USA
OFFICE ADDRESS
Gauss-Johnson Engineering Building
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
CONTACT
Email: zabideen@uidaho.edu
Phone: +1 208 885 1291
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