Research

Since July 2009, ChipFans has researched how chips prove their identity and protect their keys. That research shapes both lines of work: the chips we design, and how we evaluate chip-based systems.

Research areas

Authentication schemes for chips: How a chip proves to its host that it is genuine, without giving away its key.
Leakage and side-channel resistance: How a chip keeps its power draw, timing and electromagnetic emissions from revealing its keys.
Fault tolerance: How a chip stays correct, or fails safely, when its supply voltage, clock or environment is tampered with.
Key provisioning and lifecycle: How keys are put into a chip, and how they are stored, used and retired.

From research to practice

What we learn becomes the design principles for our authentication and encryption chips. Each design is evaluated against the attacks it is meant to resist, with the same methods we use for client evaluations.

It also becomes the test methods we use in security evaluations. We use them only on systems whose owner has authorized the work in writing, and only within an agreed scope.

How we handle what we find

We carry out our research only on devices we own or are authorized to test.

If we find a vulnerability in another party’s product, we report it to the vendor under coordinated disclosure before we publish anything about it.
We do not publish details that identify a client or a client’s systems.

If you have found a security issue in a chip we designed or on this website, go to Report a vulnerability.