Abstract: In an already shaky market, the Covid-19 pandemic caused a surge in demand for electronics to satisfy the needs of the “new normal” – remote work, distance-learning, and other at-home activities – and has led to a global chip shortage. Rest assured that counterfeiters will respond to this opportunity by flooding the supply chain with recycled, remarked, and cloned counterfeit chips. While there may not be a “one-size-fits-all” solution, low-cost technologies that cover each of the most prevalent counterfeit chip types in the market (analog and mixed signal, programmable, memories, and SoCs) do exist. Still, they are yet to be adopted by industry and until they are we will remain stuck in this never-ending counterfeit crisis. This presentation will review the recent advances in electronics testing, design-for-anti-counterfeit primitives, etc. that can provide superior counterfeit chip detection, provenance, and traceability. We will also discuss the steps needed to integrate these technologies and close the asymmetric gap of information that exists between buyers and counterfeiters for good.

Bio: Domenic Forte is an Associate Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at University of Florida (UF) where he also serves at the Director of the FICS Research SeCurity and AssuraNce (SCAN) lab. Prior to joining UF, he was an Assistant Professor in the ECE Department at the University of Connecticut. He received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Manhattan College in 2006, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2010 and 2013, respectively. His research covers the entire domain of hardware security from nano devices to printed circuit boards (PCBs). Topics include hardware security primitive design and evaluation, hardware obfuscation, hardware Trojan detection and prevention, the security of the electronics supply chain, security-aware design automation tools, reverse engineering, and anti-reverse engineering. Dr. Forte is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019, the Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (ECASE) by Army Research Office (ARO) in 2019, the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award in 2017, the ARO Young Investigator Award in 2016, the Northrop Grumman Fellowship in 2012, and the George Corcoran Memorial Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008. His research has been recognized through best paper awards and nominations from International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB) 2017, International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA) 2017, International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2016, HOST 2015, Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2012, and NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems (AHS) 2011.