Robust, low-cost, and accurate detection of recycled ICs using digital signatures

Abstract

The continuous growth of recycled integrated circuits (ICs) poses a serious threat to our critical infrastructures due to their inferior quality and has become one of the major concerns to the government and the industry. Detection of these ICs is challenging especially when they have been used for a short period of time, as the process variations (especially in lower technology nodes) could outpace the degradation caused by aging. In this paper, we propose a robust, accurate, and low-cost solution for efficient detection of recycled ICs, even if they have been used for a very short period of time. The proposed solution utilizes a ring oscillator (RO), and a nonvolatile memory. It stores the RO frequency, conditions (e.g., supply voltage, temperature, and duration) for the frequency measurement, and a digital signature. The simulation and silicon results demonstrate that we can effectively detect recycled ICs used as low as one day.