Researchers at the University of Vermont developed microchips with a feature that combines anti-counterfeit with a function that causes them to self-destruct if an attempt is made to compromise them.<\/p>\n
The team, led by Vermont\u2019s Eric Hunt-Schroeder and assisted by chip specialist Marvell Technology, was motivated to make the circuit suicide technology by reports that researchers had been able to clone SRAM-based PUFs using a scanning electron microscope. They presented the concept at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), explaining that it is based on physically unclonable functions (PUFs) which can create a unique \u2018fingerprint\u2019 for each unique chip made.<\/p>\n
The PUFs have a pair of so-called \u2018circuit suicide\u2019 methods, which both exploit voltage in the lines connecting to the encryption key\u2019s bit-generating circuits.<\/p>\n