MRI: Acquisition of High-Resolution Photon Emission/Laser Fault Injection Microscope with High-Performance Computers for Failure Analysis and Security Assessment of Electronic Syst

This MRI acquisition project will allow the purchase of a high-resolution Photon Emission/Laser Fault Injection microscope and high-performance computers. This setup will provide a platform for research, teaching, and hands-on experience for students and industry professionals. The research this instrumentation will enable focuses on the performance and security analyses of electronic devices and systems at different stages of their lifetime which will address a critical issue, securing the integrated circuit (IC) supply chain.

The project has the potential to secure large number of devices used across sensitive applications, such as in healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI), finance, transportation, and defense. With a user-friendly interface, the instrument is expected to maximize the accessibility for on-site and off-campus students and researchers. The data collected from this setup will be further made available as benchmarks to researchers in the field of AI and cybersecurity.

The instrument will bring unique capabilities to the PIs’ institution and surrounding areas to conduct research, education, and outreach activities on IC security. The PIs plan to educate and train students through online and on-site courses, as well as seminars and workshops. The PIs plan to promote broadening the participation in this research area, especially recruitment of female students.

The MRI instrument is expected to facilitate research geared to the needs of the semiconductor industry, especially with the focus on security and reliability of ICs, including three interdisciplinary topics, IC tampering and counterfeiting detection, security testing and design for security, and security evaluation using AI. The common factor among these themes is the requirement for an advanced optical mechanism to interact with an integrated circuit at the scale of a single or a handful of transistors in a non-destructive fashion.

While the first topic addresses the attacks that can be mounted during the pre- and post-fabrication, the second topic aims to provide a framework for testing and certifying a chip after manufacturing and designing a more secure chip. To achieve the goals defined in these themes, in the third topic, AI acts as an enabler since its essential role is to help analyze the data more efficiently and extract more in-depth and comprehensive information to back methodologies in the prior topics.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.