Securing PCBs from pirates

[REng]

Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

Thanks

R E

 

[Nick Funk]

Epoxy potting or encapsulation with metallic soldered/welded enclosure.
This would keep everyone except the really determined inquisitive person
out.

Nick

REng wrote:

Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

Thanks

R E

 

[Mike Harrison]

On 16 Feb 2005 05:25:03 -0800, "REng" <renginear@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

Thanks

R E

Complete waste of time. Anyone who wants to figure it out will do. best way is to put some critical
functionality in a MCU or PLD

 

[Mike Harrison]

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:02:58 -0500, Mark Jones <abuse@127.0.0.1> wrote:

REng wrote:
Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

Thanks

R E


There is such a thing - it's called potting compound. Probably an epoxy. Once
circuit is imbedded, there is almost no way to get into it without destroying it.

Epoxy is easy to remove with the right (readily available) chemicals.

 

[Luhan Monat]

REng wrote:

Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

Thanks

R E

Do everything possible in a microcontorller - set the 'code protect'
function.


--
Luhan Monat (luhanis 'at' yahoo 'dot' com)
"The future is not what it used to be..."
http://members.cox.net/berniekm

 

[Guy Macon]

REng wrote:

Hello All

We have an interesting problem - we are marketing a product (an
amplifier/signal processor) specific to our applications and we need to
prevent it from being opened up and reverse-engineered by direct
competitors.

I was wondering if anyone here knew of ways to laser off the marking
from the chips or fix/solder a flat metal sheet (like I have seen on
some boards) over the components. If the metal sheet is opened up, out
come the components as well.

If your direct competitors are as good at reverse-engineering as
I am (or are willing to hire me) the methods you describe *might*
delay the reverse-engineering by a day or two.

The other methods discussed that don't involve a redesign might
give you a week or so. I can remove epoxy, X-ray parts, and open
ICs and compare the chip to my collection of already-opened chips.

A redesign with a uC or programmable logic raises the bar quite a
bit, and might force me to design a plug-in replacement just from
looking at the inputs and outputs. Unless it's a reverb or a PRNG;
those are quite hard to reverse-engineer from the signals alone.

--
Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/>

 

[Al Borowski]

Do everything possible in a microcontorller - set the 'code protect'
function.

That will slow them down abit, but could still be beaten if the 'pirate'
is very determined.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/mcu_lock.html for instance.

Al

 

[Winfield Hill]

Luhan Monat wrote...

1. Make and sell a few of your devices without patent or any other
protection. Document all development and sales.

Right. But you'd have to publish or disclose enough design details
to allow reproduction, i.e. schematics and program listings in the
manuals, sent to every customer, etc.

2. Wait until some large company rips off your design and creates
the market for the item.

3. Approach the above company threatening to give aid and assitance
to a direct competitor of theirs. Their competetor can get a patent
using you as the intial developer. The company that stole your
design is barred from ever getting a patent do to your 'prior art.'

The one-year time limit for applying for a patent after a public
disclosure would have run out. Perhaps you could attempt to sell
your documented design info to a competitor who was being sued for
patent infringement... if you knew about it (quite a number of
"ifs" in there), but remember, you had previously disclosed this
info to all your customers, and made it public. OK, you could be
an expert witness, but that's just a little pay by the hour.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill <hill_a@t_rowland-
dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote (in <cv11h40tb0@drn.newsguy.com&gt about
'Securing PCBs from pirates', on Wed, 16 Feb 2005:

The one-year time limit for applying for a patent after a public
disclosure would have run out.

It applies only in USA only. In other countries, the initial disclosure
would *prevent anyone* securing a patent.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[REng]

I am amazed by the number of helpful replies this post received. Thank
you.

We are thinking about this product, and though I cannot elaborate , the
real IP is the 'xxxx' that will be using the hardware (amplifier+dsp)
etc and we are going to go and patent the 'xxxx' and the methods of
using 'xxx'. In the end, electronic hardware will be duplicated by
others and is not the bread and butter of the product

 

[keith]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:10:54 -0800, REng wrote:

I am amazed by the number of helpful replies this post received. Thank
you.

We are thinking about this product, and though I cannot elaborate , the
real IP is the 'xxxx' that will be using the hardware (amplifier+dsp)
etc and we are going to go and patent the 'xxxx' and the methods of
using 'xxx'. In the end, electronic hardware will be duplicated by
others and is not the bread and butter of the product

Just remember, a patent is only as good as your lawyers and is only valid
until your money runs out.

--
Keith

 

[Erik Walthinsen]

Ken Smith wrote:

Placing chips on both sides of the PCB can help to slow down the guy with
an X-ray machine. Adding a layer of squiggly traces to the PCB can also
help.

Just inadvertantly ran into a slick way of doing this. While designing
a (simple, through-hole) board in Eagle, I changed the top and bottom
copper pours to Hatched instead of Solid. If done on more than 2
layers, especially if you can get the hatching to misregister between
the layers (at least in my particular case they align perfectly), I
can't see how anyone could possibly derive a board layout via X-ray
without going utterly and irrevocably insane:

http://omegacs.net/~omega/misc/faderboard.png

- Omega
aka Erik Walthinsen

 

[Guy Macon]

Erik Walthinsen wrote:

Ken Smith wrote:

Placing chips on both sides of the PCB can help to slow down the guy with
an X-ray machine. Adding a layer of squiggly traces to the PCB can also
help.

Just inadvertantly ran into a slick way of doing this. While designing
a (simple, through-hole) board in Eagle, I changed the top and bottom
copper pours to Hatched instead of Solid. If done on more than 2
layers, especially if you can get the hatching to misregister between
the layers (at least in my particular case they align perfectly), I
can't see how anyone could possibly derive a board layout via X-ray
without going utterly and irrevocably insane:

http://omegacs.net/~omega/misc/faderboard.png

Interesting idea! Maybe you could rotate one of the two hatching
patterns by 45 degrees and make the spacing different.

 

[Winfield Hill]

keith wrote...

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:03:00 -0800, Winfield Hill wrote:

Luhan Monat wrote...

1. Make and sell a few of your devices without patent or any other
protection. Document all development and sales.

Right. But you'd have to publish or disclose enough design details
to allow reproduction, i.e. schematics and program listings in the
manuals, sent to every customer, etc.

Selling the device, with enough details to show the operation will
protect it for *your* use, but it deosn't do anythign to otherwise
"protect" the widget.

I agree, your disclosure helps protect anyone who seeks to use the
idea against someone who manages to later get a patent on the idea.

2. Wait until some large company rips off your design and creates the
market for the item.

3. Approach the above company threatening to give aid and assitance to
a direct competitor of theirs. Their competetor can get a patent using
you as the intial developer. The company that stole your design is
barred from ever getting a patent do to your 'prior art.'

The one-year time limit for applying for a patent after a public
disclosure would have run out.

...and that one-year "bar" is only for US patents. Be careful with that
"public disclosure" too. "Disclosure" includes "recieving commercial
value". If you've told a potential customer that you have a widget that
does "framis", even though you haven't told how it does "framis", the
clock has already started.

Yes, I argue that Luhan's concept of later patenting the idea is wrong.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Guy Macon]

Tim Hubberstey wrote:

If the board uses BGA packages and blind vias, you can have connections
that never see the light of day. The only way to use the continuity
check method on these boards is to strip the BGAs off first. Not a show
stopper, but it might discourage some pirates.

I would imagine that anyone who is willing to lay out a board, buy the
parts, install them and then to sell the result will not be bothered by
the slight extra amount of work it takes to remove a few BGAs.

 

[Tim Hubberstey]

Guy Macon wrote:

Tim Hubberstey wrote:

If the board uses BGA packages and blind vias, you can have connections
that never see the light of day. The only way to use the continuity
check method on these boards is to strip the BGAs off first. Not a show
stopper, but it might discourage some pirates.

I would imagine that anyone who is willing to lay out a board, buy the
parts, install them and then to sell the result will not be bothered by
the slight extra amount of work it takes to remove a few BGAs.

I agree, in general, but removing BGAs without trashing the blind vias
takes specialized equipment and *may* discourage some low-budget pirates.

If you're dealing with pirates with serious money to spend, even ASICs
will only delay them slightly. This is why I like "soft" solutions like
FPGAs. We used Actel parts because the FAE assured us that even
stripping layers from the die would not reveal which anti-fuses were
programmed. The Xilinx encrypted bitstream security sounds pretty secure
too and definitely warrants further investigation.
--
Tim Hubberstey, P.Eng. . . . . . Hardware/Software Consulting Engineer
Marmot Engineering . . . . . . . VHDL, ASICs, FPGAs, embedded systems
Vancouver, BC, Canada . . . . . . . . . . . http://www.marmot-eng.com

 

[Zak]

keith wrote:

Interesting idea! Maybe you could rotate one of the two hatching
patterns by 45 degrees and make the spacing different.

Still doesn't beat a continutiy tester and a little time. These things
are simple to RE.

Then, use capacitive coupling within the board to achieve 'things'. Fun
to trace



Thomas

 

[Guy Macon]

Zak wrote:

keith wrote:

Interesting idea! Maybe you could rotate one of the two hatching
patterns by 45 degrees and make the spacing different.

Still doesn't beat a continutiy tester and a little time. These things
are simple to RE.

Then, use capacitive coupling within the board to achieve 'things'. Fun
to trace

That *would* be difficult to reverse-engineer.