Business
The DesignTag suffer from extraneous noise from the activity on
Starter Kit the chip, fast power supply glitches and ground
bounce as well as coupling from nearby PCB
traces. External sources such as radio waves,
mains power sources and other EMI also cause
interference. Supply smoothing would be
fighting against any attempted signalling back
out from the chip, and might compromise both
the chip performance and the quality of the tag
signalling. Potentially, the wide bandwidth of
electrical signalling offers a much faster
detection, but experimentation showed that this
was more than offset by the issues discussed
above.
The DesignTag version shipping today for
use with FPGAs is called DesignTag Red. The
Why thermal and not version to cover the needs of semiconductor
electrical signals? vendors will be released shortly and is
By this time you are probably wondering why an designated DesignTag Black.
unconventional signalling medium was chosen.
The most obvious mechanism for signalling from Summary
a chip is via JTAG pins. However, there are The cost of counterfeit semiconductors is
34
drawbacks because with BGA chips and fine growing fast and is negatively impacting
pitch flat packs finding an appropriate place on revenues by between 1% and 10%. The
www
a circuit board to probe a signal can be tricky. innovative DesignTag provides a low-cost and
.eur Accessing tag information through package pins easy way to add a watermark to your devices.
oasiasemiconductor
will generally require a trained technician. Tagging your semiconductors provides a simple
The bandwidth of a thermal path through a way for your customers to identify valid or
package is low and well-matched to the counterfeit devices without resorting to lengthy
signalling scheme, because few bits are needed. engineering evaluation. The core uses well
A thermal approach gives some additional understood design techniques rather than
advantages, since it requires no interruption to relying on undocumented process variations.
.com
the normal operation of the device or access to Detection of counterfeit parts in minutes rather
electrical connections. Readings can be taken than days or weeks makes it a viable solution.
from a device in situ or in a test jig by a semi- New applications are being dreamt up for
square4
Issue I 2009
skilled operator. DesignTag as more users come to appreciate the
Signalling from the tag using EMI, RF or features. Time will tell which applications
power supply noise is also theoretically possible. become the most popular for this patented
A low level electrical signalling scheme would product from Algotronix.
REFERENCES
1 The International Chamber of Commerce web includes the statement “Counterfeit electronics are estimated to account for 1 -
10 % of global electronic sales”
2 http://www.agmaglobal.org/index.shtml
3 The International Chamber of Commerce web includes the assertion that “In China, between $300 - $400 million counterfeit
semiconductor chips are sold for each $1 billion in counterfeit electronics”
4 http://www.sia-online.org/cs/anticounterfeiting
5 An example can be found on www.integratech.com/services/Counterfeit_IC_Detection.htm
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44