New Techniques Can Identify Hard-to-Spot FPGA Fakes

Amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide semiconductor scarcity raised new issues about counterfeit chips. These embody chips which might be falsely marketed, misrepresented as recycled, or use previous, pretend, or simply not-quite-right elements.

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

FPGAs aren’t new, however they’re necessary. Their signature characteristic is that they are often reconfigured post-manufacturing, which makes them extremely versatile. This flexibility means they’re typically present in expertise with a direct influence on nationwide safety, together with satellites, army instruments, and aviation techniques. As a outcome, 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 had been impacted by pandemic supply-chain points. These chips are at present restricted and allotted to the biggest clients, in line with Global Electronics Testing Services, a element authentication service that Castellanos is working with to trace FPGAs.

Because FPGAs will not be specifically manufactured and may be modified after buy, they are often substituted with different, less-functional options, with generally harmful outcomes. In one distinguished 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 check 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 manager 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 a licensed authentic gear 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 pretend machine [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 fascinated with utilizing AI for this goal, too.

The methodology can rely upon how chips are packaged. Counterfeiters, in the meantime, may take away previous markings with sandpaper or microblasting—and detach a chip’s protecting cap—to trick consumers. Bar codes, which can be utilized to substantiate the authenticity of a component, is perhaps 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 check, the corporate may study the chip by utilizing solvents to search for potential indicators of resurfacing or remarking. For chips with steel packages, the corporate deploys scanning acoustic microscopy, which makes use of mirrored sound waves to detect imperfections or oddities. Further steps can embody electrical testing, pace and temperature testing, and even decapsulation, by which a chip’s inner construction is uncovered for investigation.

Now the corporate is taking a look at utilizing artificial intelligence to take care of some of the troublesome issues with figuring out counterfeit FPGA: doctored temperature and pace rankings. Traditionally, analyzing these points 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 drawback stays troublesome to broadly observe. Counterfeiters don’t report their numbers, observes Saddow, and firms aren’t prone to open up concerning the dupes they’ve fallen for.

Of course, Global ETS is way from the one group centered on the difficulty, however the firm says it has added a number of new places 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 difficulty as nicely.