Silicon Investigations Repair Service
 
 



Silicon Investigations Integrated Circuit Reverse Engineering Services



We are an electronic engineering and R&D company specializing in reverse engineering of integrated circuits and PCBs to provide the supporting engineering documentation you require.

Reverse engineering of integrated circuits involves examining a chip to see how it operates and the processes used to create it. This involves taking the chip apart (called deprocessing) to determine what components are used to make it work and how they are interconnected (called a netlist extraction).  The first step in reverse engineering an integrated circuit is to remove the actual silicon (or other semiconductor) die from the plastic or metal chip carrier in a process called decapsulation.  Once the bare die is obtained, it is examined under a scanning electron microscope and optical microscopes to identify the circuit elements and how they are interconnected.  This is dome by making a high resolution image of each layer of the chip (subsequent layers are exposed by deprocessing).  Once this series of image layers is created, software is employed that extracts the circuit elements and the netlist.  The resulting schematic of the chip is then verified and delivered to the customer.

We can also reverse engineer a printed circuit board (PCB) to determine how the components are interconnected. Multi-layer boards are analyzed by X-Ray examination or delaminated and imaged to determine how the inner traces are routed and connected.  The images of the individual layers of a printed circuit board are analyzed to generate a net list then converted to a schematic that can be used to recreate the board.

Sometimes the operation of a microprocessor or a PLD/FPGA can be determined solely by observing the inputs and outputs.  More commonly, we read out the machine code to determine how it operates.  Some embedded processors have security measures to prevent this, but there are many tools at our disposal to circumvent them so that the original program code can be extracted.

The results are usually a block diagram, schematic diagram, circuit board layout, flowchart, netlist table, raw program code, or operational documentation.  Depending on your requirements, we can deliver documentation in many different formats.

Reverse engineering is required more and more to support older products.  Many times, for older products, the original schematics and product support documentation have been lost over time, and it is necessary to re-create the documentation.  Additionally, some components may have been house numbered or had their identification obscured to prevent field repair.  In some cases, the component may no longer be available and a substitute must be found or engineered.

We can also provide this type of engineering service discreetly without the involvement or knowledge of your in-house engineers or other departments if needed.

We have over 25 years of practical experience in reverse engineering of semiconductor devices.  From firmware debugging to failure analysis and reverse engineering, we have the tools and skills necessary to assist your organization.

For further information, please contact us.




Last Modified May 29, 2020
This page, and all contents, are Copyright © 2004-2019 Silicon Investigations, Ltd. Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.




Home - About Us - IC Reverse Engineering - IC Failure Analysis - Patent Services - Vacuum Tube R&D; - Graphene Research - Design Services - Vacuum Engineering - IC Decapsulation Service - Repair Service - Reference Material - Hewlett Packard (Agilent, Keysight) Repair - Contact Us - Site Map

Silicon Investigations - Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Reverse Engineering About Silicon Investigations, our Abilities and Customers Intelectual Property Protection Services. Integrated Circuit failure Analysis Integrated Circuit Package Decapsulation Services Reference Material for Patent Services and integrated circuit Reverse Engineering Silicon Investigations Industrial Electronic Equipment and Laboratory Equipment Repair Services High Vacuum & UHV System Chamber Design & Retrofit Services Electronic Design Services - Specializing in Quick Prototyping - chip on board COB, metallized Alumina for RF. Contact Silicon Investigations for a Quotation on Your Project I.C. Integrated Circuit MCU Microcontroller Unlocking (Code Recovery) Service Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Manufacurers' Logos Identification Guide Integrated Circuit Package Reference Material - Outline Diagrams of Common Devices VME System Components for Repair and Maintenance of SBC VME Computers Agilent, Keysight, Hewlett Packard, HP Repair and Software Operating System Boot Diskettes VME System Component Inventory for Repair and Maintenance of SBC VME MVME Computers Quantum Anomaly Detector Theory - Is it Possible to Decipher the Future? EG&G (Perkin Elmer) Krytron Replacements [KN-4 KN-6, KN-6B KN-9 KN-22, KN-26] and Information on Low Jitter Plasma Trigger Tubes I.C. Integrated Circuit Reverse Engineering Service Vacuum Tube Research, Development, and Custom Scientific Instrument Design Services Graphene Research & Development Program DSO Nano Oscilloscope Firmware Update Archive Public Domain Component Identification Information