Ternary Crypto Hardware
+ DFT/BIST

Overview

This patent addresses two critical concerns for any computing system: security and testability. It defines cryptographic hardware primitives designed for balanced ternary arithmetic, and the design-for-test (DFT) and built-in self-test (BIST) infrastructure needed to manufacture and verify photonic-ternary chips.

The cryptographic primitives operate natively on trit-encoded data. Balanced ternary has inherent properties that benefit cryptographic operations: the symmetric range around zero, natural signed arithmetic, and the larger state space per digit (3 vs 2 states) all influence the design of ternary hash functions, key derivation, and encryption primitives.

The DFT/BIST subsystem ensures that the photonic-ternary fabric can be tested both during manufacturing and at runtime. This is essential for a novel device technology where existing binary test infrastructure does not apply.

Key Innovations

• Cryptographic primitives designed for balanced ternary arithmetic
• Ternary hash functions exploiting the symmetric trit state space
• Design-for-test (DFT) infrastructure for photonic-ternary devices
• Built-in self-test (BIST) circuits for runtime integrity verification
• Scan chain architecture adapted for three-state logic testing
• Fault models specific to photonic-ternary failure modes

Technical Approach

In binary computing, test infrastructure assumes two states and stuck-at fault models. Photonic-ternary devices have three states and different failure modes — a device might get stuck at +1, 0, or −1, or might lose its photonic response while retaining electrical conductivity. The DFT infrastructure accounts for these ternary-specific failure modes.

The BIST circuits generate ternary test patterns, apply them to the fabric, and compare results against expected values — all in balanced ternary. This allows the system to verify its own integrity at boot time and during operation, without requiring external binary test equipment.

The cryptographic subsystem provides hardware acceleration for security operations used by the THATTEOS kernel (Thatte6), including privilege domain enforcement, secure boot verification, and encrypted inter-process communication.

Verification

The DFT/BIST specifications are part of the multi-scale simulation stack. The cryptographic primitives have been defined in the ManiT language and compiled to T3ISA machine code, verifying correct operation on the ternary instruction set.

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