T4T - Distributed manufacturing for innovative and trusted electronics

The secure supply of electronic components is of growing strategic importance for Germany as an industrial location. The increasing relocation of integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing to non-European regions increases the vulnerability to the introduction of malware and espionage functions into components supplied by contract manufacturers (foundries). At the same time, the risk of intellectual property (IP) theft of circuit designs by third parties is increasing.

The "Distributed Manufacturing for Novel and Trusted Electronics T4T" project aims to provide domestic industry with tools to access secure supply chains and trusted electronics. Subcomponents adapted to these requirements can still be accessed via existing supply chains (split manufacturing), but the assembly and encoding of the systems will take place in a trusted environment at the German site.

Fraunhofer IPMS in the project

Within the project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS will address two main topics.

1. On the one hand, the interface between classical front-end (wafer fabrication) and back-end (heterointegration) will be developed and optimized in terms of the split manufacturing approach with regard to contamination management, defect density and process quality. 
2. In addition, a modern post-quantum cryptography technique using non-volatile memories (NVMs) will be investigated and tested. This security element, together with distributed manufacturing, should provide additional protection.

Impact

The knowledge gained from the project is intended to make a structural contribution to the standardization of processes in packaging and interconnection technology and, to this end, define new design specifications and tolerance rules for offset and structure sizes.

Not only the involved partner companies but also small and medium-sized enterprises will benefit from the achievement of the project goals. The aim is to create potential for them to offer innovative electronics systems and thus increase the technological sovereignty of Germany as a business location.