Re: Securing PCBs from pirates

From: keith (krw_at_att.bizzzz)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:01:28 -0500

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:04:54 +0000, Guy Macon wrote:

>
>
> Erik Walthinsen wrote:
>
>>Ken Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Placing chips on both sides of the PCB can help to slow down the guy with
>>> an X-ray machine. Adding a layer of squiggly traces to the PCB can also
>>> help.
>>
>>Just inadvertantly ran into a slick way of doing this. While designing
>>a (simple, through-hole) board in Eagle, I changed the top and bottom
>>copper pours to Hatched instead of Solid. If done on more than 2
>>layers, especially if you can get the hatching to misregister between
>>the layers (at least in my particular case they align perfectly), I
>>can't see how anyone could possibly derive a board layout via X-ray
>>without going utterly and irrevocably insane:
>>
>>http://omegacs.net/~omega/misc/faderboard.png
>
> Interesting idea! Maybe you could rotate one of the two hatching
> patterns by 45 degrees and make the spacing different.

Still doesn't beat a continutiy tester and a little time. These things
are simple to RE. A decade or so ago I had a high security crypto design.
The "secure processor" was wound in about a half-mile of wire, bridged to
detect intrusion, with environmental sensors and the whole nine yards.
There was no pretense of stopping anyone from copying the design, only the
data within. Physical designs are easy to copy.

OTOH, you might want to look at the Xilinx FPGA security. I'm not
convinced it's worth it, but that's an issue for each design. 

-- 
  Keith
-- 
  Keith

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