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Fake chips
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mawyatt:
Check out the Saelig newsletter about fake chips.

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Fake chips are a serious concern for military and other critical systems, so DARPA created a program ~8 years to help identify a legit chip. The idea was to have a tiny,  ~ $0.01 RFID tag chip embedded in the package. This tiny chip was powered from the RF signal from the reader and had a unique encrypted code for the specific chip which was returned when read with the proper encrypted code.

Best
ataradov:
But if anyone can read the RFID chip, they can just clone it. I don't understand how that would work. You can try to track and record every code to see if there is a duplicate, but that sounds logistically hard.

With active request-response system it might be more viable, but it would not be $0.01. Military may not care, of course.

Also, what do you do with fake resistors and capacitors? Transistors?
David Hess:

--- Quote from: ataradov on July 20, 2021, 08:11:30 pm ---But if anyone can read the RFID chip, they can just clone it.
--- End quote ---

Not if they set the do not clone bit.  It was standardized by the same minds that came up with the evil bit for packet filtering.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3514

mawyatt:

--- Quote from: ataradov on July 20, 2021, 08:11:30 pm ---But if anyone can read the RFID chip, they can just clone it. I don't understand how that would work. You can try to track and record every code to see if there is a duplicate, but that sounds logistically hard.

With active request-response system it might be more viable, but it would not be $0.01. Military may not care, of course.

Also, what do you do with fake resistors and capacitors? Transistors?

--- End quote ---

My understanding was the chip only responds after it received a proper encrypted code which is embedded in the RF signal that enables the chips and also powers it. The response was encrypted so that only the  proper received signal by the transmitting source could verify the chip's identity.

Keep in mind that even 10 years ago you could cram an entire 486 chip under a bond pad (100um sq) of a modern SOTA process. I remember the DARPA chips were less than 100um square, but still plenty of transistors available. Since they are wireless they have no pads and can be tested wirelessly, so the $0.01 per chip seems within reach on a large wafer.

Folks were more concerned about complex chips, not single transistors, R & Cs.

This is all related to the Trusted Foundry formed a couple decades ago, specifically created to guarantee the pedigree of certain special chips intended for critical applications. However there is an increasing reliance on standard commercial chips in critical applications, and having a means for identifying potential counterfeit chips which may have "backdoors" is highly beneficial to both the military and certain non-military uses.

Best,
ataradov:
There is no way to make RFID work without pads. You need to attach the antenna, which also complicates overall packaging.  $0.01 per die is reasonable, but more complicated packaging would not be cheap.

You can investigate making the antenna out of bonding wire, but it is not a straightforward process either.

And I really don't see how this would work in practice. What if I get legitimate RFID ICs and package them with fake real die? If the supply of the RFID ICs is somehow tightly controlled, then why not apply the same control to the actual chips?
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