DARPA Technology Could Uncover Counterfeit Microchips

coondoggie writes The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said this week one of its contractors, working on one of the agency's anti-counterfeit projects has developed and deployed what it calls an Advanced Scanning Optical Microscope that can scan integrated circuits by using an extremely narrow infrared laser beam, to probe microelectronic circuits at nanometer levels, revealing information about chip construction as well as the function of circuits at the transistor level.

Comments

This tool needs to hit the market asap.

[Grog6]

I have had numerous problems with counterfeit transistors and Zener diodes.

How can you profitably screen thousands of rectifier diodes for their zener point, then grind off the original markings, and mold on new partnumbers??

At $0.003 each?

At least the transistors failed spectacularly. :)

Define "counterfeit"

[retroworks]

Most of the accused "counterfeit" chips I've read about aren't "counterfeit" at all. They are used, secondary market, chips harvested from used boards. The "infamous Guiyu" of China e-waste fame is a hub where workers cut out individual microprocessors and chips from boards and repurpose them. The general term in the industry is "gray market"... gray because it's not purely black market, and because of the difficulty in distinguishing what the illegality is when a Chinese factory has substituted a working used part for an OEM part.

Re:Define "counterfeit"

[ArcadeMan]

Some of the markings are so bad that the only way to read them properly is to go down to the cellar, with a flashlight, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Counterfeits'.

Re:oh you mean tools to counterfeit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the ability to flawlessly clone hardware crypto chips ever be useful to a government that respects privacy?

Counterfeiting? Or...?

[blackiner]

I am no engineer or scientist, but are these precise enough to be used to extract hw encryption keys? Because if so, I think I can guess the real purpose for developing these.

Counterfeiting? Or...?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

"The ASOM technology housed at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane will help engineers provide forensic analysis of microelectronics, including integrated circuits confiscated by law enforcement officials, DARPA stated."

Vague? Move along civilian......

Re:Question from the lawn

[kesuki]

the real use of this tech is not to kill counterfeiting it is to know what a chips parts look like. also a malware/spyware IC isn't something that can be ruled out by a simple test of if it does as advertised. i have a $40 tablet that connects to a chatbot system based on yahoo messenger everytime i activate the official android yahoo messenger from play market i get a 'friend' request from an offline user who one or more days later asks if i want to see them naked on a webcam.

if that iRulu tablet is feeding my data to a yahoo messenger botnet (they are a F rated company on the BBB have a cheesy website etc) who knows what else it is trying to do... and if you think 'just root the damn thing' there isn't a really well documented screen shot by screenshot of how to say load an alternative os, because apparently it is illegal to do so on a tablet because the term 'tablet' was too obscure for the judge to rule on it.

so yeah shining a laser on a chip to know what it really has on there is huge, especially for military use.

Re:Question from the lawn

[petermgreen]

The problem is testing "every possible op code" is insufficiant, you would have to test every possible opcode/operand/register state combination since the condition for "evil behviour" may test on a tight combination of those. Doing so is compututationally infeasible.