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topquark

Community Member

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Posts: 61
Thames Valley, UK

IC reverse engineering
Jan 04^th, 2007, 1:53am

Hello folks

Had been musing over this for a while now..
what exactly does reverse engineering mean in the context of IC design. Does it really involve putting a new competitor's IC under micrograph, identify layout of any block, derive its schematics and analyze??!!

Are there really any job profile out there for this kind of stuff?!!
It'd be nice to hear experts views on this.

Regards,
Gau

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ACWWong

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Posts: 539
Oxford, UK

Re: IC reverse engineering
Reply #1 - Jan 4^th, 2007, 2:33am

In large companies stories are rife that there are groups which do this. Although this might have been the case 10 years ago, I doubt it still happens so much now due to the complicated multi-metal processes of today.
Previously I have looked at competitor chips at a probe station to identify topolgies and try to work out what was going on from a higher level point of view.... it ain't easy and to be honest little was gleaned, and I'd have been better off spending the time doing developing my own designs....
Having said this, it would be enlightening to hear if people still attempt reverse engineering on modern processes from purely looking at fabricated chips.... if somehow someone had your gds2 then thats a different story...

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Geoffrey_Coram Senior Fellow Offline Posts: 1998 Massachusetts, USA	Re: IC reverse engineering Reply #2 - Jan 4^th, 2007, 5:52am I think there are still companies out there that, in fact, do deprocess chips to figure out how they work. Some of this sort of work is used to determine if patent infringement has occurred.
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qiushidaren Community Member Offline I am a lovely MOSFET! Posts: 86 Chengdu	Re: IC reverse engineering Reply #3 - Jan 10^th, 2007, 6:22pm Actually I am doing reverse engineering right now, I think for a newbie in analog IC design, reverse engineering is the first step for you to get it started. -Terry
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Croaker

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Posts: 235

Re: IC reverse engineering
Reply #4 - Jan 12^th, 2007, 1:55pm

Well, reverse-engineering is what you're doing anytime you are trying to understand a design you didn't create out of the blue! Wink

Chipworks, a Nortel spin-off is a well-known reverse-eng company. I think they can basically photograph the chip and some software figures out the layout and schematics.

As Alan says, I'm not sure how big a competitive advantage it is to do this...maybe just to see if there's any big 'aha' that you're missing. I think it'd be most useful for resolving legal disputes.

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loose-electron Senior Fellow Offline Best Design Tool = Capable Designers Posts: 1638 San Diego California	Re: IC reverse engineering Reply #5 - Feb 1^st, 2007, 3:22pm http://www.chipworks.com/default.aspx See above link - It is a business, they are one of the bigger players, and a lot of quiet behind the scenes stuff happens as well.
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xn47 New Member Offline Posts: 4 Japan	Re: IC reverse engineering Reply #6 - Jun 12^th, 2007, 6:28pm I also have a reverse project right now.. I have here an attachment of double base npn transistor..
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