Electronics counterfeiting is a significant and growing problem for electronics manufacturers, system integrators, and end customers, with an estimated annual economic impact in billions of dollars. These counterfeit Integrated Circuits (ICs) can have degraded reliability, smaller operating ranges, or lower performance compared to the genuine article. This project combats IC counterfeiting, by designing and implementing secure chip odometers to provide ICs with both a secure gauge of use and age and an authentication of provenance to allow system integrators to easily discern genuine parts from counterfeit ones. These techniques will provide ICs with functionality analogous to a car's odometer and vehicle identification number (VIN) which can securely measures its mileage and the VIN uniquely identifies its make, model, date of manufacture, and options. This project explores the IC aging phenomenon to determine the most accurate, variation-tolerant time measurement, and the most efficient with respect to very large scale integration. The investigators study attacks that are possible against IC odometers, and determines the best method of securing IC odometers against each attack. The project develops fabricated IC odometer testchip prototypes, which will provide proof-of-concept designs and experimentally measured data to back theoretical analysis and models.
SaTC: STARSS: Combatting Integrated Circuit Counterfeiting Using Secure Chip Odometers