Towards the Avoidance of Counterfeit Memory: Identifying the DRAM Origin
This addresses a critical security and reliability issue for electronic systems by preventing the deployment of sub-standard counterfeit DRAM modules.
The paper tackles the problem of counterfeit DRAM modules in the global supply chain by proposing a technique to identify the DRAM origin, including manufacturer and specification, to detect and prevent counterfeits, with a silicon evaluation showing reliable identification of off-the-shelf modules from three major manufacturers.
Due to the globalization in the semiconductor supply chain, counterfeit dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips/modules have been spreading worldwide at an alarming rate. Deploying counterfeit DRAM modules into an electronic system can have severe consequences on security and reliability domains because of their sub-standard quality, poor performance, and shorter life span. Besides, studies suggest that a counterfeit DRAM can be more vulnerable to sophisticated attacks. However, detecting counterfeit DRAMs is very challenging because of their nature and ability to pass the initial testing. In this paper, we propose a technique to identify the DRAM origin (i.e., the origin of the manufacturer and the specification of individual DRAM) to detect and prevent counterfeit DRAM modules. A silicon evaluation shows that the proposed method reliably identifies off-the-shelf DRAM modules from three major manufacturers.