New Techniques Can Identify Hard-to-Spot FPGA Fakes

Amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide semiconductor scarcity raised new considerations about counterfeit chips. These embrace chips which are falsely marketed, misrepresented as recycled, or use outdated, faux, or simply not-quite-right components.

Now, even because the chip scarcity has begun to abate, some researchers are nonetheless monitoring fakes of 1 specific sort of chip—field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)—and dealing on higher methods to determine counterfeits.

FPGAs aren’t new, however they’re essential. Their signature characteristic is that they are often reconfigured post-manufacturing, which makes them extremely versatile. This flexibility means they’re typically present in know-how with a direct impression on nationwide safety, together with satellites, army instruments, and aviation techniques. As a end result, bogus FPGAs are extraordinarily regarding.

“Basically, an FPGA can be a supersimple logic component or get configured as a microprocessor. So having this flexibility adds a great value to FPGA,” explains Alexandro Castellanos, an engineering professor on the University of South Florida. “That’s what makes it so valuable, strategically. An FPGA can take the form of whatever you need in terms of electronics, from simple applications to defense systems to drone control.”

Like different chips, FPGA provides have been impacted by pandemic supply-chain points. These chips are at the moment restricted and allotted to the biggest prospects, in response to Global Electronics Testing Services, a part authentication service that Castellanos is working with to trace FPGAs.

Because FPGAs should not specifically manufactured and may be modified after buy, they are often substituted with different, less-functional options, with typically harmful outcomes. In one outstanding instance from 2011, the U.S. Navy inadvertently put in a “reworked” Xilinx FPGA in a reconnaissance plane that had, at an earlier step within the provide chain, been marketed as new. The Navy blamed the FPGA for the failure of the plane’s ice-detection module throughout a take a look at flight.

“If the FPGA is counterfeit there is a risk that the ‘brain’ is not functioning properly or at full capacity. Another risk of counterfeit FPGAs is, in theory, you could configure or program one to do something very different from what was intended,” stated Faiza Khan, the chief director of the Independent Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA), a commerce group that focuses on the standard of the electronics provide chain, in an electronic mail.

Two of the three FPGAs within the high row of this picture are fakes, with a bogus bar code [top left] and an erased bar code [top middle]. The third is an authorized authentic tools producer (OEM) half [top right]. Using the Xilinx app, a bar-code scan [bottom left] confirms half authenticity, whereas one other is recognized as a faux gadget [bottom right].Global ETS

Castellanos, together with one other University of South Florida engineering professor, Stephen Saddow, is working with Global ETS on methodologies for investigating potential counterfeit FPGAs. The firm is more and more thinking about utilizing AI for this objective, too.

The methodology can rely on how chips are packaged. Counterfeiters, in the meantime, would possibly take away outdated markings with sandpaper or microblasting—and detach a chip’s protecting cap—to trick patrons. Bar codes, which can be utilized to substantiate the authenticity of an element, could be erased.

“Imagine you’re looking at two identical Honda Accord cars, but the engines and the features inside the engine are completely different,” explains Saddow. “When you look at the car, same color, same model, year, and everything. One engine has been modified and one engine is original—you open the hood and discover they’re completely different.”

ETS’s methodology first includes conducting a visible inspection to search for any hints of resurfacing or remarking. If the chip makes use of a plastic molding take a look at, the corporate would possibly study the chip through the use of solvents to search for potential indicators of resurfacing or remarking. For chips with metallic packages, the corporate deploys scanning acoustic microscopy, which makes use of mirrored sound waves to detect imperfections or oddities. Further steps can embrace electrical testing, pace and temperature testing, and even decapsulation, wherein a chip’s inside construction is uncovered for investigation.

Now the corporate is utilizing synthetic intelligence to take care of probably the most troublesome issues with figuring out counterfeit FPGA: doctored temperature and pace scores. Traditionally, analyzing these features of FPGAs has been costly.

“An FPGA buyer relies on manufacturer representations regarding operating characteristics such as speed and operating temperature range,” defined John Villasenor, a electrical engineering professor on the University of California, Los Angeles and the codirector of the college’s Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, in an electronic mail. “Counterfeit FPGAs may not deliver the advertised performance, putting at risk the systems in which the counterfeit FPGAs are installed.”

The downside stays troublesome to broadly monitor. Counterfeiters don’t report their numbers, observes Saddow, and corporations aren’t more likely to open up in regards to the dupes they’ve fallen for.

Of course, Global ETS is way from the one group centered on the problem, however the firm says it has added a number of new areas up to now a number of years and seen a surge in enterprise. IDEA has its personal tips and really useful inspection strategies for coping with counterfeit chips. The Semiconductor Industry Association, which lobbied for the latest CHIPS and Science Act legislative package deal, has been monitoring the problem as nicely.