Research Terms
This counterfeit detection system determines whether a suspect integrated circuit (IC) or system-on-chip (SOC) component is recycled. The prevalence of counterfeit electronic components in the supply chain costs manufacturers billions and threatens the reliability of American infrastructure. Counterfeit electronics also jeopardize critical national security initiatives, as 15 percent of the replacement parts the Pentagon purchases are counterfeit. Recycled integrated circuits are the most common type of counterfeit electronic component. Available techniques for detecting recycled components require data from known authentic chips, which are usually not accessible or are not applicable to all types of frequently counterfeited electronics.
Researchers at the University of Florida have developed an inexpensive universal analysis system and algorithms for detecting any type of recycled counterfeit electronic component. The process determines if an electronic component is a recycled counterfeit by analyzing its power supply regulator, a ubiquitous element in various counterfeit chips. The universal technique will benefit electronics testing services and help secure supply chains for electronic device manufacturers, governments, etc.
Universal detection of recycled integrated circuit components that exposes counterfeits to secure the international electronics supply chain
The detection process analyzes the power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) data of a component’s low-dropout regulator (LDO), an almost universal power supply regulator, to evaluate its degradation and determine its age. An artificial intelligence machine-learning model generates an aging projection for LDOs. After evaluating the degradation of an electronic component’s LDO, comparing its degradation with the LDO aging projection can determine whether the component is recycled. The machine-learning algorithm that differentiates aged and new LDOs can be user-supervised or unsupervised. With semi-supervised and supervised algorithms, the process can effectively identify LDOs that were recycled less than 10 days prior. The universal technique can identify recycled chips at essentially no cost.
This enhanced threshold voltage-defined logic family enables the secure design and operation of Boolean functions, resilient to reverse engineering. Hardware intellectual properties (IPs) and integrated circuits (ICs) are prone to reverse engineering. While reverse engineering is beneficial for learning and understanding diverse IPs and ICs, it often associates with illegal issues regarding security, such as IP/IC piracy, counterfeiting, and Trojan insertions. It also reveals the design to third parties. Obscuring the designs of intellectual properties and integrated circuits is of concern for designers. Recently, diverse logic families leveraging the different threshold voltage (VT) devices in general CMOS technologies, with different VT transistors such as low VT transistors, standard VT transistors, and high VT transistors, can conceal and protect hardware intellectual properties and integrated circuits against reverse engineering. The logic functionalities in these designs are not distinguishable through physical appearance, as the gates leverage different threshold voltage implants that are difficult to identify through reverse engineering. However, the number of threshold voltage-defined transistors and transistors in the stack increase significantly with the increase of inputs.
Researchers at the University of Florida developed an enhanced threshold voltage defined (E-TVD) logic family with a parallel configuration for designing Boolean functions. This enables the logic family to use different threshold voltages while eliminating the need for stacking transistors in series. It protects the logics in hardware intellectual property and integrated circuits from reverse engineering and reduces the area, delay, and power consumption.
Implements a parallel configuration, simplifying the circuit design of the enhanced threshold voltage defined (E-TVD) logic family for designing Boolean function resistant to reverse engineering
The parallel configuration of this enhanced threshold voltage-defined (E-TVD) logic family enables the operation of multiple Boolean functions. Unlike traditional threshold voltage-defined logic families, the enhanced threshold voltage-defined circuit operates as different gates by utilizing the various threshold voltage of transistors, significantly reducing the total number of transistors required to implement the same function. The parallel configuration design simplifies designing complex logic circuits and improves the circuit's area, delay, and power consumption while making it more resistant to reverse engineering.
