Multicolumn e-beam lithography (MEBL) for IC traceability: MEBL enables chip ID to thwart tampering/counterfeiting

Multicolumn Electron Beam Lithography (MEBL), a proprietary technology platform developed by Multibeam Corporation, is being applied to enable Security Lithography – a maskless embedding of unique security information into each IC during routine wafer fabrication. This paper focuses on ensuring Secure Chip ID, which provides traceability of a chip throughout its lifecycle and enables confirmation of its unique identity and provenance. The complete MEBL embedding process is disclosed – from chip design to IC fab to verification test. This paper also shows how MEBL hardcoding of the Secure Chip ID “at the silicon level” makes the embedding process cost-efficient and tamperproof.