IC Surgery: getting to the heart of the problem with the smallest scalpel
summary
Describes using a focused ion beam (gallium) plus electron and infrared microscopy to map chips at ~5 nm resolution, mill dielectric, deposit tungsten/platinum traces and make probe pads; demonstrates bypassing serpentine shields by cutting and shorting 16 shield lines to remove an entire mesh, and probing a 32‑bit bus with only eight probes at once. Shows back-side edit trenches hundreds of microns deep (stop at wells) and uses voltage contrast and backscattered imaging to find tungsten plugs.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction to hardware security
- 2:14Hard vs hardened chips
- 6:51Focused ion beam tools
- 11:27Reverse engineering chips
- 18:05Bypassing secure shields
- 33:18Backside circuit access
- 38:38Q&A session
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