518
6 Reverse Engineering of Microcircuits
Patenting and licensing company—Chipworks, contracted to solve this task,
presented its corresponding business plan demonstrating the ways to solve this
task set by the management. In accordance with this plan, a complex of works
was carried out within only three months using the reverse-engineering strategy,
which resulted in determining specific fasts (algorithms, functional, and electric
schemes), internal protocols, standards and documentation of this telecommunication
company that fully confirmed the facts of illegal (non-formalized) use of intellectual
property objects of the semiconductor company responsible for manufacturing the
base set of microcircuits, including the algorithms of their use in subsystems of this
telecommunication company.
Of course, the process of evidence collection included analysis of all the existing
patents of this telecommunication company, process features of applying various
wired and wireless networks associated with the features of the organization of the
general control system of this network, analysis of internal standards of the company,
physical analysis of all main boards with applied microcircuits, as well as operations
of functional testing of these boards.
As a result, by using these results obtained with low financial costs, the semiconductor company managed to receive hundreds of millions of dollars as legal income
from these license agreements.
As a result, all patent and licensing departments of large semiconductor companies, in addition to their main functions of protecting intellectual property rights,
assumed well-paid functions of monetization of intellectual property patents, which
resulted in creation of a completely new market of innovation.
In this regard, we should also note high profits from investments in outsource
reverse-engineering companies.
For example, clients of the Chipworks company mentioned above ultimately
received over 100 US dollars for each dollar spent for the services of the company
between 2009 and 2014 [2].
Evidently, in the semiconductor field, where hundreds of thousands and even
billions of dollars are invested in technologies and equipment, this is a fairly attractive
basis; this is why the re-engineering technologies are in high demand here.
For example, Fig. 6.8 shows an interesting information about the number of patents
in the USA received in the field of semiconductor production only between 2005 and
2009. As we can see, even regardless of the well-known global economic crisis of
2008, the number of patents received annually didn’t undergo any changes, remaining
within 2950 and 2700 per year. And this is considering the fact that the number of
players in this market is increasing due to joining semiconductor commissions from
China and other Asian countries.
Another extremely stable trend in the development and resolution of so-called
patent disputes, or patent courts: their number has been constantly growing for the
last 10 years. Therefore, the sphere of activity of companies such as Chipworks is
constantly expanding, becoming truly international. This company ensures implementation of reverse engineering and support of patent rights of the manufacturer
of semiconductor devices and systems based on these devices not only in Canada,
where it was first registered, but also in the USA, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, and other
6 Reverse Engineering of Microcircuits
Patenting and licensing company—Chipworks, contracted to solve this task,
presented its corresponding business plan demonstrating the ways to solve this
task set by the management. In accordance with this plan, a complex of works
was carried out within only three months using the reverse-engineering strategy,
which resulted in determining specific fasts (algorithms, functional, and electric
schemes), internal protocols, standards and documentation of this telecommunication
company that fully confirmed the facts of illegal (non-formalized) use of intellectual
property objects of the semiconductor company responsible for manufacturing the
base set of microcircuits, including the algorithms of their use in subsystems of this
telecommunication company.
Of course, the process of evidence collection included analysis of all the existing
patents of this telecommunication company, process features of applying various
wired and wireless networks associated with the features of the organization of the
general control system of this network, analysis of internal standards of the company,
physical analysis of all main boards with applied microcircuits, as well as operations
of functional testing of these boards.
As a result, by using these results obtained with low financial costs, the semiconductor company managed to receive hundreds of millions of dollars as legal income
from these license agreements.
As a result, all patent and licensing departments of large semiconductor companies, in addition to their main functions of protecting intellectual property rights,
assumed well-paid functions of monetization of intellectual property patents, which
resulted in creation of a completely new market of innovation.
In this regard, we should also note high profits from investments in outsource
reverse-engineering companies.
For example, clients of the Chipworks company mentioned above ultimately
received over 100 US dollars for each dollar spent for the services of the company
between 2009 and 2014 [2].
Evidently, in the semiconductor field, where hundreds of thousands and even
billions of dollars are invested in technologies and equipment, this is a fairly attractive
basis; this is why the re-engineering technologies are in high demand here.
For example, Fig. 6.8 shows an interesting information about the number of patents
in the USA received in the field of semiconductor production only between 2005 and
2009. As we can see, even regardless of the well-known global economic crisis of
2008, the number of patents received annually didn’t undergo any changes, remaining
within 2950 and 2700 per year. And this is considering the fact that the number of
players in this market is increasing due to joining semiconductor commissions from
China and other Asian countries.
Another extremely stable trend in the development and resolution of so-called
patent disputes, or patent courts: their number has been constantly growing for the
last 10 years. Therefore, the sphere of activity of companies such as Chipworks is
constantly expanding, becoming truly international. This company ensures implementation of reverse engineering and support of patent rights of the manufacturer
of semiconductor devices and systems based on these devices not only in Canada,
where it was first registered, but also in the USA, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, and other