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DARPA Technology Could Uncover Counterfeit Microchips

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-scan dept.

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.

1 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Counterfeiting? Or...? by blackiner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.