506
6 Reverse Engineering of Microcircuits
This shall be done as fast as possible before a similar product from the competitors
emerges in the market (which will happen sooner or later).
This moment usually corresponds to the peak of the sales curve, which is followed
by sad yet inevitable phase of decline and extinction of production of this product.
Of course, it is to be quickly replaced by another innovative product from the same
or another manufacturer, which has completed this painful stage of creation by this
moment. What is left for the developer who has been just riding the wave of success
of a new type of innovation that is already obsolete today? The answer is obvious:
the manufacturer needs either to implement a complex of technical measures to
modernize (improve) its design and/or technology in order to increase its functionality
and technical parameters and reduce the prime costs, or to obtain (purchase or steal)
a design of a successful competitor to copy (RE) it; sadly, these are the laws of
economy and market regardless of the specific purpose of a product.
Even though microcircuits, especially the ones used in military and spacecraft
applications, have their own specific features detailed in the first volume of our book
[1], in general, unfortunately, they are destined to get born and die according to the
laws of this phase diagram (Fig. 6.1).
Tough laws of the market lead to emergence of equally tough operation in the
market: these are the notions of the so-called gray market and gray business; it
should be noted that such gray business has always existed in parallel to the white
business. Even if we consider such relatively non-innovative product as whisky and
the well-known Prohibition in the USA, we will immediately remember about such
objectives concept as bootlegging.
In the field of microelectronic production, gray business is mostly associated with
the notions of counterfeit products or clones.
Methods of manufacturing and supplying counterfeit microcircuits to the market,
as well as the methods of their identification and countermeasures are widely covered
in modern literature, including the second volume of this book [1]. For the readers
who are interested in a more detailed understanding of this problem, we suggest
reading our work Space microelectronics: vol. 2, Artech House, Boston, 2017.
However, it should be said in fairness that the so-called microelectronic counterfeit
appeared almost two centuries later than the date of event that is currently referred
to as reverse engineering.
Jumping forward, it has to be said that while microelectronic counterfeit is bad, the
new phenomenon of hardware Trojans, to which this book is dedicated, is extremely
bad!
While effective software means methods and hardware means to prevent entrance
of counterfeit microcircuits to strategic military and space objects which have been
present and applied for a long time; it took security specialists too late to realize
the situation with hardware Trojans in microcircuits and other various backdoors:
according to most experts, these parasites today have turned into a special and highly
effective form of cyber weapon and penetrated virtually all spheres of scientific and
technical activities—from commercial and office devices to systems of weapons,
protection of strategic objects, and all control systems of spacecraft serials—both
ground complexes and electronic spacecraft systems.
6 Reverse Engineering of Microcircuits
This shall be done as fast as possible before a similar product from the competitors
emerges in the market (which will happen sooner or later).
This moment usually corresponds to the peak of the sales curve, which is followed
by sad yet inevitable phase of decline and extinction of production of this product.
Of course, it is to be quickly replaced by another innovative product from the same
or another manufacturer, which has completed this painful stage of creation by this
moment. What is left for the developer who has been just riding the wave of success
of a new type of innovation that is already obsolete today? The answer is obvious:
the manufacturer needs either to implement a complex of technical measures to
modernize (improve) its design and/or technology in order to increase its functionality
and technical parameters and reduce the prime costs, or to obtain (purchase or steal)
a design of a successful competitor to copy (RE) it; sadly, these are the laws of
economy and market regardless of the specific purpose of a product.
Even though microcircuits, especially the ones used in military and spacecraft
applications, have their own specific features detailed in the first volume of our book
[1], in general, unfortunately, they are destined to get born and die according to the
laws of this phase diagram (Fig. 6.1).
Tough laws of the market lead to emergence of equally tough operation in the
market: these are the notions of the so-called gray market and gray business; it
should be noted that such gray business has always existed in parallel to the white
business. Even if we consider such relatively non-innovative product as whisky and
the well-known Prohibition in the USA, we will immediately remember about such
objectives concept as bootlegging.
In the field of microelectronic production, gray business is mostly associated with
the notions of counterfeit products or clones.
Methods of manufacturing and supplying counterfeit microcircuits to the market,
as well as the methods of their identification and countermeasures are widely covered
in modern literature, including the second volume of this book [1]. For the readers
who are interested in a more detailed understanding of this problem, we suggest
reading our work Space microelectronics: vol. 2, Artech House, Boston, 2017.
However, it should be said in fairness that the so-called microelectronic counterfeit
appeared almost two centuries later than the date of event that is currently referred
to as reverse engineering.
Jumping forward, it has to be said that while microelectronic counterfeit is bad, the
new phenomenon of hardware Trojans, to which this book is dedicated, is extremely
bad!
While effective software means methods and hardware means to prevent entrance
of counterfeit microcircuits to strategic military and space objects which have been
present and applied for a long time; it took security specialists too late to realize
the situation with hardware Trojans in microcircuits and other various backdoors:
according to most experts, these parasites today have turned into a special and highly
effective form of cyber weapon and penetrated virtually all spheres of scientific and
technical activities—from commercial and office devices to systems of weapons,
protection of strategic objects, and all control systems of spacecraft serials—both
ground complexes and electronic spacecraft systems.