How to Capture power traces from Artix-7 FPGA (Basys-3)

#1

Hi everyone,

I have an encryption algorithm running on a Basys-3 Board, from Xilinx (FPGA XC7A35T). I also have a ChipWhisperer Pro, and I would like to capture power traces of the encryption method in order to run a DPA attack on this encryption algorithm.

The Basys-3 board is connected to my PC via USB and i have the possibility, thanks to a Python script and an UART, to run N encryptions. I’d like to record these N traces during encryption with the H-field probe (CW505). I know that there is a ChipWhisperer API available in Python, but I do not really know which methods or functions i need to use.

I did not find anything regarding external components on the CW Wiki, so if someone has any advice, feel free to answer :slight_smile: Thank you !

#2

Hi Cedric,

You should be able to use wiki.newae.com/Making_Scripts as a reference to allow your Python script to interface with ChipWhisperer. You can also use the help() function in the Python Console for documentation for different modules/submodules.

Let me know if that helps,
Alex

#3

Hi,

Sorry I haven’t updated the topic ! What I finally did is that I connected a wire from an FPGA Pmod to the trigger pin 4 of the CW1200 (16th pin of the 20-pin target connector) and i modified my vhdl design in order to send a trigger when the encryption start.

With the CW Capture software, I’m able to get the traces related to the encryption (the import setting is to set the trigger mode to rising_edge in my case) !

I consider my initial issue solved !