M. Shur
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, United States
Keywords: cyber security, terahertz technology, genuine VLSI, faked VLSI
Growing sophistication of electronics devices and circuits and, especially of VLSI, presents increasing demands on circuit testing . The conventional techniques of electric testing does not assure a complete fault identification. Faked VLSI capable of surreptitious performance have become an increasing problem often referred to as “trojan hardware”. Experimental techniques, such as laser scanning and terahertz imaging have a limited resolution signal-to-noise ratios and encounter difficulties in defect identification. A new approach of THz testing of Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuits, VLSI, and ULSI is based on measuring the circuit responses at the pins or input/output leads and comparing these responses with etalon responses. This technique could be extended for the fault diagnosis and identification and for the lifetime and reliability predictions. The processing of these responses forming multi-dimensional images in the excitation parameter space could be done using artificial intelligence making this testing technique self-learning and self-improving.