Power traces not displaying

Embedded Security ChipWhisperer Software
1

Hi Colin,

I am trying to acquire the power traces from a smartcard when an operation is performed. The problem is when “rising edge” is selected as an option no power trace is displayed.

This is my setup on the victim board:

My software setup is as follows:
Scope Module: ChipWhisperer/OpenADC
Target Module: Smart Card
Trace Format: ChipWhisperer/Native
Reader Hardware: ChipWhisperer-SER
SmartCard Protocol: JCardTest

    OpenADC–>Gain–>Setting: 35
    OpenADC–>Trigger Setup–>Mode: Rising Edge
    CW Extra–>Clock Source: TargetIO-IN
    CW Extra–>Trigger Pins: Uncheck Front Panel A
    CW Extra–>Trigger Pins: Check Target IO4 (Trigger Line)
    OpenADC–>Clock Setup–>ADC Clock–>Source: EXTCLK x4 via DCM
    OpenADC–>Trigger Setup–>Total Samples: 5000

I have modified the JCardTest to look like this:

def go(self):

        status = self.hw.sendAPDU(0x00, 0xA4, 0x04, 0x00, [0xD0, 0xD1, 0xD2, 0xD3, 0xD4, 0xD5, 0x01, 0x01])
        if status != 0x9000:
            raise IOError("Invalid Status: %x" % status)

        (resp, pay) = self.hw.sendAPDU(0x80, 0x01, 0x09, 0x09 , rxdatalen=18)
        if  resp != 0x9000:
            raise IOError("Invalid Status: %x" % status)

        self.resp = pay
        print self.resp

Using that APDU the app on smartcard will display 18 b’s as you can see in the image the output is “66” which is B in Dec. I am getting the correct output from the smartcard. However, you can see there is no power trace. Do you know why no power trace is displayed and what can I do?

Regards.

2

Sorry on the huge delay here - I’ve been moving my lab and the result has been a massive drop in productivity :confused: Anyway…

Can you confirm the ‘DCM Locked’ checkbox, along with the output ADC frequency? The error you describe sounds a lot like what happens if the DCM cannot lock. This can happen with lower frequencies, as the system has trouble locking < 5 MHz input frequency.

Regards,

-Colin

3

Hi Colin,

As you can see in the third pic of my first post the DCM is greyed out but shows it is locked. (Hope it is really locked?) and the ADC frequency is 14.3MHz

Regards.

4

Somehow I missed that sorry! Yes that is not the issue… the other possability is the trigger wasn’t processed by the HW properly.

An easy check is to switch the trigger mode to something like ‘high’ or ‘low’ (can try both), which will cause the trigger to occur immediately.

Regards,

-Colin O’Flynn