STARFIRE INDUSTRIES LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: This SBIR project will fabricate and characterize no-power sensors to enable self-protecti

Description

This SBIR project will fabricate and characterize no-power sensors to enable self-protection mechanisms to prevent an adversary from accessing or reverse-engineering sensitive military electronics containing critical program information (CPI). Due to the wide number of threat channels and intrusion modalities, innovative approaches on anti-tamper (AT) sensor technology are needed to counter a capable adversary with a strong reverse-engineering technology base. DoD is focused on the development of zero-power AT sensor technologies for use at the printed circuit board level or integrated circuit level. Here the motivation is to detect intrusion prior to product teardown where an adversary can perform system level analyses and extract CPI. Since military hardware will typically be enclosed in a tamper-proof container or encapsulation, an adversary will need to develop a"depot"strategy to extract the circuit board and/or on-board CPI components while avoiding or negating AT hardware at the packaging level. This is typically accomplished with a non-destructive scan using x-ray, focused-ion or electron beam analysis. New non-destructive imaging techniques are emerging that can defeat these beam-like AT mechanisms. This Phase II proposal aims to develop new AT techniques to counter emerging threats building on successes in Phase I modeling, simulation and proof-of-concept experimental demonstration.