The scourge of forged integrated circuits (ICs) on the market is a matter of concern for the electronics sector at large. A not-for-profit company called Battelle endeavors to counter just that with a technology called Barricade. With the new know-how, the company will offer non-destructive testing and authentication of a range of electronic components in a short turnaround time.
Barricade has been developed with the intention of securing electronic devices that are used in mission-critical applications such as defense, aerospace, medical devices, and other critical infrastructure. The system was recently showcased at the 2015 GOMAC Tech Conference, which was held in St. Louis, Missouri in the last week of March.
The technology is composed of hardware and software for signal acquisition that can be installed at the customer’s site. It allows ICs to be rapidly and accurately validated – all the user has to do for this is to insert the IC into a chip socket. Barricade gathers the electronic signatures of each chip class and classifies these according to a special algorithm. Anything that meets the pre-decided parameters is classified as authentic.
In order to check an entire class of ICs via barricade, users can randomly authenticate a few chips. The technology will be compatible for use with both digital and analog devices. Currently, most anti-counterfeiting technologies that are available on the market need to be tracked or tagged, which not only makes them very expensive, but also adds to their turn-around time. On the other hand, Barricade can be applied at virtually any stage in the supply chain and being a highly repeatable process, it is very versatile, the company said in a statement.
This technology assumes importance in the backdrop of a fast-expanding IC market. According to the estimates of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the value of ICs imported into the U.S. in 2013 was US$231 billion. This was 20% increase over the year before.
