Embedded Microexplosives for Secure Hardware (EMESH)

The EMESH program will deliver hard, epoxy based materials embedded with microscale quantities of micro explosives (mu X) for tamper-reactivity. Using the same high aspect MEMS photosensitive epoxies the EMESH project will produce demonstration circuit traces which use all three dimensions above the substrate (or circuit board).Using "thick" resists as a material to embed both complex three dimensional circuit traces and microexplosive mine fields, it is now possible to construct secure hardware using UV photolithography and electroless metal deposition. Because of technologicaladvances in the world of micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), the same techniques used to assemble micro-sized components to replace macro systems can now be applied to the problem of infrastructure protection and tamper-resistant and reactivehardware. A tamper reactive material would deny attackers the ability to dissect components by imparting damage to critical areas -- rendering the device inoperative. Additionally, EMESH architecture is also inherently difficult to reverse engineer. MEMS techniques can produce circuit traces with a cross-sectional profile only microns in dimension.Furthermore, tamper-proof circuit traces using MEMS electroforming techniques can use all three dimensions to bewilder an attacker attempting to understand the device's design.