Articles

Counterfeit electronic components - DARPA

Parent Category: Rocktabs Archive

1404 HFE news02

Used and non-authentic counterfeit electronic components are widespread throughout the defense supply chain; over the past two years alone, more than one million suspect parts have been associated with known supply chain compromises. The problem is pervasive, with both expensive and inexpensive electronic parts being targeted. A new DARPA program seeks to develop a tool to verify, without disrupting or harming the system, the trustworthiness of a protected electronic component. The DARPA Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense (SHIELD) program seeks proposals to develop a small (100 micron x 100 micron) component, or dielet, that authenticates the provenance of electronics components. Proposed dielets should contain a full encryption engine, sensors to detect tampering and would readily affix to today’s electronic components such as microchips.