Anti-tampering Devices for Connected Objects

The experiment was conducted by S2P. S2P has a strong activity in so called anti-tampering devices: with the increase of electronic and connected objects everywhere, the confidential information contained in memories (bank, military, medical, personal data…) need of protected from theft. Some can steal them using software, but another way is to tamper physically the device and get direct access to chips and copy the secured data. To avoid this, on top of the electronics chips/boards, S2P adds a plastic cover that integrates full 3D conductive tracks, intermeshed, with a complex structure design by engineers to have tracks on the full surface, everywhere. It acts as a sensor to detect any physical intrusion in the system : if the track is broken, the data are erased from the memory.

Currently, the 3D meshes produced by S2P are fully designed by engineers, as it’s very complex and long job to be able to add this tracks everywhere on the cover, in 3D, and ideally with different/random meshes for each produced part in order to make it even more difficult for pirates to enter the system. Currently, there is no software able to route conductive tracks in 3D; so Engineers (for the design rules) and CAD Technicians need to do it by themselves, directly on CAD software tools (Solidworks). The goal is to draw line per line all tracks on the 3D faces in order to cover all area.  During the routing, all constraints and design rules from the technology need to be respected as geometry, size of the tracks, number of tracks intermeshed, multilayer, contact points with the electronic board, and so on…

The Experiment is run on an already existing product, the anti-tampering device, consisting of a plastic component with a fully integrated 3D conductive track on top. Currently the design is manual since the cover needs to be designed in 3D, since it is not possible to start from a 2D shape and then to apply it on a 3D object. Furthermore, objects to be covered changes every time, so very often it is not possible to re-use previous projects and the design must be done from scratch.