DARPA Technology Could Uncover Counterfeit Microchips 35
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.
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Indeed, now the U.S. government will have tools it needs to create malicious counterfeit chips that are nearly undetectable.
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Why would the ability to flawlessly clone hardware crypto chips ever be useful to a government that respects privacy?
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Most of the chips built in China are being built by fabs set up by foreign companies, not indigenous Chinese foundries. There is a big difference. I can't understand why so many companies are willing to provide their technical knowledge to China just to do business with them. Even for people looking to make an extra buck off the cheap labor should see the shortsightedness of taking this path.
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The "shortsightedness" is giving away your technology advantages to a country that is slowly losing their only advantage, namely cheap labor. Low labor costs and little to no corporate regulations in the labor and environmental areas plus some considerable currency manipulation has allowed China's exports to surge. Now other countries in SE Asia are able to compete with China's low labor costs while China's labor force is asking for better wages and benefits which if granted would help stimulate their domes
Once again (Score:2)
Why are big websites never posting images? In this particular case it would have been nice to see at least what a scan of an IC looks like.
This tool needs to hit the market asap. (Score:4, Interesting)
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. :)
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This does not sound like it will be of much use for discrete electronic components.
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A Scanning Microscope? (Score:1)
The modern day processor has about 2 billion transistors. That may take a while.
Define "counterfeit" (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes I have had the same experience. Id add that many 'fakes' are also simply batches from the oem that failed process control, but not too badly, and were either unknowingly or knowingly sold to black markets for relabeling as original components. Sometimes for more money than the ones that didn't fail thier spec tests.
More than once I've used simple magnification and reflection of light off the surface to see original markings that were 'erased' so they could be reprinted and resold.
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Often manufacturers seem to do a really shitty job of marking their chips requiring you to hold them to the light in just the right way to read the bloody things.
I suspect you wouldn't even need to erase the markings to relabel those, just print the new markings in a way that was actually visible under normal conditions.
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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'.
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Most of the accused "counterfeit" chips I've read about aren't "counterfeit" at all.
Please feel free to share what you've been reading.
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.
I'd like to know where you read that Chinese vendors have "substituted a working used part for an OEM part"
Here's where I read that counterfeit chips are a problem:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/11/25/1940247/man-pleads-guilty-to-selling-fake-chips-to-us-navy [slashdot.org]
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/09/0255231/us-military-trying-to-weed-out-counterfeit-parts [slashdot.org]
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/29/0038231/gao-sting-finds-more-fake-military-parts-from-china [slashdot.org]
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Glad to. Did you read the articles linked behind the Slashdot stories you cite? The only two sources of "disputed" chips in the articles are 1) first use lawsuit chips (parts purchased by OEM 2 from OEM 1, sold as surplus to OEM 3 which lacks licensing agreement with OEM 1), and 2) used harvested chips from military parts.
I witnessed it first hand in 3 Chinese factories, and have previously read and/or commented on the three /. links. None of the articles discounts/contradicts used and harvested chips at
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That's a very good question, but DARPA actually did define "counterfeit" in the SHIELD RFP. It was a very broad and very verbose definition that covered used and other sub-standard parts.
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Counterfeiting? Or...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Counterfeiting? Or...? (Score:2)
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......
Layers (Score:2)
Question from the lawn (Score:2)
Granted that my experience is way out of date, but why not just try every possible op code, especially undocumented codes and see if they do what is expected? This wouldn't detect counterfeits but could turn up any built-in monkey business.
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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 feedin
Re:Question from the lawn (Score:4, Informative)
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.
There are easier ways to discover them... (Score:2)
It really isn't rocket science. Take a look at the top of the IC or Transistor, often you'll see a "glazed" top which indicate that the chip has been painted over, and the new fake numbers gets printed on top of the paint.
Another way, look closely at the transistor or semiconductor - just use glasses or a magnifying glass to take a close look, a hobby microscope will do just fine too...if you discover that the surface has been "sanded", you should be on alert.
Che
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Their broad definition of "counterfeit" includes the cheap knockoffs that might be functionally equivalent but substandard.
Nonsense! (Score:2)
Once you decap a chip, a toy microscope is enough to tell a counterfeit die from the real thing. Using a laser to stimulate the chip is not a tool to detect counterfeit chips, but for testing, reverse engineer, and thus potentially make counterfeits.