DARPA funds chip development to validate electronic components

As reported by DARPA in a press release announcing the beginning of the development of Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense (SHIELD), over the past two years more than a million electronic parts and components of dubious quality and authenticity have been identified on equipment used by the US Department of Defense. These are second-hand parts, sold under the guise of new ones, and microcircuits with labeling that has been tweaked to improve performance, and “left” surpluses that manufacturers sell semi-legally, and frank fakes.

This flow of counterfeit compromises the reliability of the equipment on which people's lives may depend. DARPA proposes to develop a miniature (100 to 100 microns) and inexpensive (less than one cent per piece) chip that will confirm the authenticity of electronic components. The chip will be inside the microcircuit case, but will not be electrically connected to its functional filling and should not require significant changes in the production process.

Unlike conventional RFID tags, this will be a very advanced device. The authenticity of the part can be checked with a special scanner, which will read the serial number of the part, and then send it to the manufacturer’s server via the Internet. From the server will come a sequence of characters to which the chip must respond with an encrypted message confirming the authenticity.
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The chip must contain sensors that will help detect attempts to open the device, for example, a photocell. The sensor triggering data will also be sent to the server during the scanning of the device. In addition, the design of the chip and its location inside the chip must be such that it remains operational during normal operation, but fails when attempting to open it.

Although no protection system can guarantee 100% security and authenticity, DARPA hopes that they will be able to create a device that is cheap and comfortable enough to claim the role of a generally accepted industry standard, and at the same time make the manufacture of any fakes unprofitable. More detailed information about the required characteristics of the system and the project budget will be published on March 14 at a presentation for companies and organizations wishing to participate in the design competition.