June 27–29, 2017
The College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center
College Park, MD

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Counterfeit Detection Using Power Spectrum Analysis

Guillermo Loubriel (gmloubr@sandia.gov)

Bio

Dr. Guillermo M. Loubriel received his PhD degree in solid state physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. Since then he has been at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) where he is manager of the Validation and Failure Analysis (FA) Department in the Microsystems Science & Technology Center. This department covers the areas of ASIC Validation, Burn-In, and Extrinsic Reliability, FA of semiconductor devices, and research in counterfeit detection. Dr. Loubriel has also managed Short-Pulse Laser, High Power Microwave, and Directed Energy groups. He has over 118 publications and 5 patents. He received DOE/ NNSA’s Defense Programs Award for Excellence award in 2004 for developing PhotoConductive Semiconductor Switches, a SNL Award for Excellence for managing a turn-around in the HPM program in 2002, and multiple Employee Recognition Awards.

Abstract

The proliferation of off-shore manufacturing of integrated circuits (ICs) has impacted the control companies have on intellectual property (IP) that goes to foreign foundries in the form of netlists and masks. That can result in leakage of that IP for illicit production of counterfeit devices and increased the risk of potential counterfeit entry into the domestic supply chain. Conventional electrical testing, which primarily measures an IC’s functionality and parametric parameters, is useful only for screening grossly obvious counterfeits. This talk will focus on Power spectrum analysis (PSA). It measures the dynamic frequency-domain responses of ICs or electronic parts such as capacitors when they are subjected to a dynamic stimulus. Due to the non-linear aspects of the semiconductor’s response and its inherent complexity, unique PSA signatures exist in the power spectrum associated with each IC. These signatures are found to be sensitive to very subtle changes not detectable with conventional (mostly linear) electrical testing. Hence, PSA can detect subtle differences in ICs and aid in the detection of counterfeits. PSA is a comparative technique that uses a “golden” standard as a reference. “Unknown” PSA signatures are compared to the reference to detect differences. Counterfeit devices have distinct PSA signatures that allow differentiation from the “real” ICs. To date, PSA has been found to be effective in detecting changes resulting from different manufacturers, different features (e.g. memory sizes), changes in processing, different foundries, and different functionalities. This talk will describe the PSA technique itself, modeling results, and various PSA applications such as detection of different manufacturers, different features, changes in processing (different date codes), and different manufacturing sites of the same foundry. *Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL8500.