Tamper-resistant electronic circuit and module incorporating electrically conductive nano-structures

Abstract

A device and method are disclosed comprising one or more electrically conductive nano-structures defined on one or more surfaces of a microelectronic circuit such as an integrated circuit die, microelectronic circuit package (such as a TSOP, BGA or other prepackaged IC) a stacked microelectronic circuit package, or on the surface of one or more layers in a stack of layers containing one or more ICs. In one embodiment, the electrically conductive nano-structure is in electrical connection with a monitoring circuit and acts as a “trip wire” to detect unauthorized tampering with the device or module. Such a monitoring circuit may include a power source such as an in-circuit or in-module battery and a “zeroization” circuit within the chip or package to erase the contents of a memory when the electrically conductive nano-structure is breached or altered. The device may be configured to blow one or more fuses or overcurrent protection devices when the electrically conductive nano-structure is breached or altered. In a further embodiment, one or more electrically conductive nano-structures are used to interconnect and reroute one or more electrical connections between one or more ICs (or dummy leads and vias) to create an “invisible” set of electrical connections on the chip or stack to obfuscate an attempt to reverse engineer the device, i.e., a set of connections that cannot be observed by standard test means such as by X-ray or conventional microscope.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.