Counterfeit Electronics: A Rising Threat in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry

As the supply chain of electronic circuits grows more complex, with parts coming from different suppliers scattered across the globe, counterfeit integrated circuits (ICs) are becoming a serious challenge which calls for immediate solutions. Counterfeiting includes re-labeling legitimate chips or illegitimately replicating chips and deceptively selling them as made by the legitimate manufacturer, or simply selling fake chips. Counterfeiting also includes providing defective parts or simply previously used parts recycled from scrapped assemblies. Obviously, there is a multitude of legal and financial implications involved in such activities and even if these devices initially work, they may have reduced lifetime and may pose reliability risks. In this tutorial, we provide a comprehensive review of existing techniques which seek to prevent and/or detect counterfeit integrated circuits. Various approaches are discussed and an advanced machine learning-based method employing parametric measurements is described in detail.