International Business Machines Corporation
Inspection and identification to enable secure chip processing

Abstract:

A computer-implemented method executed on a processor for detecting whether a wafer has been tampered during a semiconductor fabrication process, the method including, at a plurality of patterning steps where lithographic patterns are defined and etched or at a plurality of fabrication processing steps, marking, via an identification tool, each die with an unclonable identification in a memory array, inspecting, via an inspection tool, each of the dies, and removing compromised wafers from a wafer pool during the semiconductor fabrication process.