Texplained opens Nice lab for IC analysis

Three year-old French reverse-engineering and IC security analysis company Texplained of Sophia Antipolis, near Nice, has opened a new laboratory.

The lab offers analyses of microchip security and helps companies protect ICs against counterfeiting and piracy.
“Microchips are extremely vulnerable to security threats,” says Texplained CEO Olivier Thomas, “we approach, assess and solve microchip security issues with a different mindset – half hacker, half engineer with electronics knowledge. Armed with this unique mindset and the latest laboratory technologies, our pioneering ‘savoir-faire’ enables us to solve our clients’ microchip security issues on a worldwide basis.”
Texplained provides its clients with services including auditing the security of ICs, backdoor research and IP infringement investigation.
Texplained’s clients include microchip manufacturers, government organisations and systems integrators that integrate microchips into their products.
Texplained believes that it is one of the only companies in the market to specialise solely in microchip reverse engineering and security.
Building a new lab in-house enables Texplained to reverse engineer microchips and analyse ICs using the latest imaging and deprocessing technologies.
The process involves removing the five to 20 layers of metal and oxide that typically make up a chip.
This requires a combination of different chemical and mechanical processes. After the delayering, Texplained scans images of these microscopic layers with a scanning electron microscope. The Texplained team then uses its proprietary ARES ‘automated reverse engineering software’ to analyse the images of the circuits on each layer.
Texplained’s new lab provides clients with a greater depth of analysis more quickly and cost-effectively. With Texplained housing all the technologies and processes for microchip analysis in its new lab, clients can enjoy more security and flexibility as they now no longer have to outsource their microchip analysis to multiple partners to obtain reliable results.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/texplained-opens-nice-lab-ic-analysis-2016-11/