Counterfeit Electronics Detection and Prevention

The development of any modern information systems is heavily relying on microelectronics, such as the power grid, medical instruments, or even the national defense systems. However, as the hardware foundation, the security and trust of microelectronics have been overlooked for decades. For example, even the functional failure of a single transistor could possibly lead to catastrophic events. Counterfeit electronics, which are the biggest cause of equipment failure, have infiltrated our government and public sector and a need to expose these faulty components exists. Our objective is to create a commercial product to sell to military, medical and microchip manufacturers that distinguishes between counterfeit and authentic chips. This device would consist of the proper input/output ports to test a variety of memory options like USB, SD or even external hard disk drives. A system is needed to allow manufacturers or companies to detect if IC chips are counterfeit or not. A machine that can distinguish whether a chip is old or new can help their business grow instead of losing clients/customers. The team’s priority is to create and prototype a machine that can allow manufacturer/company users to detect counterfeit integrated circuits that can distinguish between an old/used chip from new chips. This device should be able to detect bit errors of memory chips for our testing procedures.