A Holistic Blockchain Based IC Traceability Technique

Abstract

Globalization of semiconductor design and manufacturing process has led to several hardware security issues in last two decades is well known. Counterfeit electronic parts entering the supply chain as genuine chips lead to loss of revenue and reputation for chip makers and counterfeit parts will have serious reliability issues, which will harm customers. Research towards mitigating the counterfeit parts entering supply chains is well researched topic in last one decade and IC traceability is one such technique. Blockchain based IC traceability techniques are also proposed and existing IC traceability techniques keep track of ICs in the post sales domain means how IC ownership change hands from Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) to end user through sales channel. Fabless chip makers depend upon multiple contract firms to manufacture the chips and Outsourced Test and Assembly (OSAT) centers to test the chips. Fabless chip makers must keep track of chips coming from multiple foundries and several OSAT centers and IC traceability techniques will be helpful in this task. In this paper, we propose an IC traceability technique which facilitates fabless ODMs to keep track of IC from fabrication and test facilities along with sales channel.