News Release Details

Company uses reverse engineering to evaluate FPGA designs at bitstream level as way to improve design integrity

ROANOKE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May. 24, 2012-- Luna Innovations Incorporated (NASDAQ: LUNA), a leading player in integrated circuits security, has developed technology that uses reverse engineering of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) bitstream design files to improve design integrity and further enhance cybersecurity.

Luna makes it possible to perform high-reliability verification of FPGA designs at a bitstream level to detect any malicious functionality. This is particularly important to keep defense microelectronic systems trusted, safe and mission ready.

FPGAs function as programmable processing chips and are widely used in defense systems because commercially produced FPGAs are affordable and customizable.

“Our technology is like a virus scan for field-programmable gate array designs,” said Jonathan Graf, Director of Secure Computing and Communications Technologies for Luna. “The FPGA is a microelectronic device and the bitstream tells it what to do. Now, our customers are able to directly verify that the bitstream does what they want it to do and nothing else. Luna’s technology provides the unprecedented ability to detect errors and potential security compromises.”

About $4 billion in FPGAs are purchased each year for use in computing and telecommunications systems.

Initially proven in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s TRUST in Integrated Circuits program, Luna’s bitstream conversion technology creates trust in FPGA designs by verifying design integrity, ensuring no additional operations are performed, and assuring that a bitstream-level design operates as the designer intended.

The technology also has potential in commercial applications.

An FPGA bitstream is a vendor‐specific binary format, and until now there have not been sufficient methods to guarantee that it contains exactly what a designer intended. Traditionally, verification of the final design implementation is limited to spot checking the design in hardware. Unfortunately, this type of testing often cannot provide full coverage of a design, and cannot fully address the potential for errors. This is of particular concern to high‐reliability systems that must confirm that their bitstream is exactly as intended.

In addition, as devices age and systems remain in use, it’s critical to understand bitstream-level functions when designs are transferred from old FPGAs to newer devices.

“In many instances, the design on an old FPGA has proven reliable and effective and our technology allows the customer to use the old design on a newer device,” Graf explains. “Often the term ‘reverse engineering’ is seen in a negative light. In our case, the technology is doing good.”

“Luna’s capabilities allow FPGA designs to be evaluated with a significantly higher degree of confidence than previously available,” said My Chung, CEO of Luna Innovations. “This is a valuable benefit for our customers and illustrates one of our key corporate growth strategies – to be the leading choice for integrated circuits security for weapons systems.”

Over the past seven years Luna has won more than $20 million in contracts related to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s TRUST in Integrated Circuits program, which ensures the trust of integrated circuits used in military systems that are designed and fabricated under untrustworthy conditions.

About Luna Innovations

Luna Innovations Incorporated (www.lunainnovations.com) focuses on sensing and instrumentation. Luna develops and manufactures new-generation products for the healthcare, telecommunications, energy and defense markets. The company's products are used to measure, monitor, protect and improve critical processes in the markets it serves. Through its disciplined commercialization business model, Luna has become a recognized leader in transitioning science to solutions.

Forward Looking Statements

This release includes information that constitutes "forward-looking statements" made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding, but not limited to: the uniqueness of Luna’s technological capabilities, product capabilities, market acceptance, technological attributes, advantages and applications, and customer use. Statements that describe the company's business strategy, goals, prospects, opportunities, outlook, plans or intentions are also forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including technological challenges in specific applications and risks and uncertainties set forth in the company's periodic reports and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such filings are available at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov, and at the company's website at http://www.lunainnovations.com. The statements made in this release are based on information available to the company as of the date of this release and Luna Innovations undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Source: Luna Innovations Incorporated

Luna Innovations Incorporated
Dale Messick, 1-540-769-8400
[email protected]