Can you still happily plagiarize after being sentenced to three years in prison for "reverse" design?

Source: Content from 21ic Electronics Network , Thanks.

On May 30, Luo Kaiyu, the legal representative of a Shenzhen company, was sentenced to three years in prison for making huge profits through "reverse" chip research and development.

It is understood that Luo Kaiyu is the legal representative of a Shenzhen electronics company. In April 2014, Luo Kaiyu signed an agreement with a Wuxi integrated circuit design company in the name of the company to counterfeit the genuine 9700USB network card chip. Luo Kaiyu's company invested 400,000 yuan and provided genuine network card chip samples. The legal representative of the Wuxi company, Xu, and the research and development director Zhu organized technical personnel to extract data information and submitted it to a Suzhou technology company to produce chip wafers, which were then cut and packaged into counterfeit 9700USB network card chips.

As of May 2015, the Suzhou company had produced and delivered 112 counterfeit chip wafers, each of which could be made into about 6,500 counterfeit chips. Xu delivered the first batch of 50,000 packaged counterfeit 9700 USB network card chips to Luo Kaiyu, who then entrusted others to sell them and made huge profits.

Some netizens think it is incredible that the person in charge of hardware reverse engineering was arrested, while others say reverse engineering is actually beneficial. So where do reverse-engineered chips come from? Is it legal?

How do “reverse-engineered” chips come about?

Manufacturing corresponds to disassembly. In the chip industry, disassembly has a professional term, called reverse engineering. So, what is the process of reverse engineering of integrated circuits? How are the various processes carried out?

Disassembly: Place the chip to be disassembled in a container filled with concentrated sulfuric acid. The container needs to be covered, but not tightly, so that the gas inside can overflow. Heat the concentrated sulfuric acid in the container to boiling (about 300 degrees Celsius), and spread baking soda around the bottom of the bottle - to prevent accidental splashing of sulfuric acid liquid and sulfuric acid gas.

Photography: Microscopic images of chip samples are collected layer by layer on the microscopic image automatic acquisition platform. Unlike reverse design for measuring three-dimensional solids or surfaces, measuring integrated circuit chips is purely superficial: after placing the chip, focusing, and selecting the magnification, so that the chip surface is clearly visible in the lens and on the display, press the camera button to complete the acquisition of a microscopic image. Depending on the scale and magnification of the circuit, a layer of circuit may need to be pieced together after taking multiple images, and multiple layers of circuits need to be aligned after pieced together. There is microscopic image automatic pieced together software for pieced together and alignment operations.

The microscopic image automatic acquisition platform has a magnification of 1000 times, which can magnify a 0.1um line to a width of 0.1mm, which means it is sufficient to handle 0.09um integrated circuit chips currently made using the most advanced technology.

Illustration: Integrated circuits are made up of multiple layers, each of which is determined by a photomask using a photolithography process. The geometric pattern on the mask used to manufacture integrated circuits is the layout, and the layout is the physical layer corresponding to the integrated circuit.

Now the drawing work can be completed by computer. The mainstream circuit schematic analysis system has powerful functions such as multi-layer microscopic image browsing, circuit unit symbol design, automatic and interactive analysis and extraction of circuit schematics, and circuit schematic editing. The layout analysis system can complete the automatic extraction of multi-layer layout outlines, full-function layout editing, automatic recognition, extraction, verification of embedded software code, and statistics and extraction of design rules.

Arrangement: Digital circuits need to merge similar graphics, such as NAND gates, NOR gates, triggers, etc. The same graphics should not be analyzed multiple times. The proposed circuit is drawn using circuit drawing software (ViewWork, Laker, Cadence, etc.), and arranged according to an easy-to-understand circuit layout so that other personnel can also see the function of the circuit you extracted. The speed of circuit extraction is completely determined by the experience level of the person who provided the drawing. Note that the software connects the components according to the position of the layout. If the circuit is not arranged, the connection and function of each module cannot be seen, so the circuit function block division and analysis cannot be completed entirely by software.

Analysis: The extracted circuit is organized into a circuit diagram and the geometric parameters are entered (MOS is the ratio of width to length). Through your analysis, the circuit function is clear and the circuit connection is correct.

Simulation: Perform functional simulation verification on the circuit. Analog circuits generally use tools such as Hspice and Cadence, and small-scale digital circuits use tools such as Cadence and Hsim. Adjust the circuit according to the new process and verify it after adjustment.

Verification: Browse, query, edit, debug and simulate the input circuit schematic. Analyze the circuit principle, adjust the circuit parameters, and observe the output waveform under certain stimulus input to verify the logical correctness of the design. Simulate and verify the extracted netlist and compare it with the previous simulation results. Export the layout to GDS file and tape out (transfer the design data to the manufacturer).

Disassembly - reverse engineering, which is the most violent and direct way to acquire knowledge in the field of chip design, naturally conforms to the development of the domestic IC design industry.

Controversy: Is “reverse engineering” legal?

In fact, reverse design is not uncommon in the domestic IC design industry. China started late, and the design of many products is learned from foreign countries, especially in analog chip design, which requires very high experience. Therefore, in analog chip design, such as ADC, DAC, phase-locked loop and other analog circuits, most of the domestic ones are done through reverse design. In fact, this is plagiarism. There is a joke in the industry that Taiwanese IC design relies on reverse design to plagiarize Americans, and Chinese IC design relies on reverse design to plagiarize Taiwanese. This actually states a fact that when domestic IC design companies were first established, a large number of them relied on reverse design to plagiarize the designs of ready-made products from abroad.

The verdict on Luo Kaiyu can be said to be a major turning point in China's semiconductor intellectual property protection policy. It shows the country's attitude: reverse design, this blatant copying of other people's intellectual property rights is illegal and must be stopped.

However, are all reverse engineering illegal? The answer is no.

The United States is the birthplace of the integrated circuit industry, and its history of chip reverse engineering is almost as long as that of the integrated circuit industry. The discussion within the industry on the legality of reverse analysis led to the birth of the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 (SCPA) in 1984. Section 906 of the SCPA Act and its judicial interpretation clearly define the legality of reverse engineering.

The SCPA Act of the United States has in fact become a reference for other countries to formulate relevant laws. Article 23 of Chapter 4 of the "Regulations on the Protection of Integrated Circuit Layouts" promulgated and implemented by China in 2001 states: "Parties who reproduce protected layout designs for personal purposes or for the purposes of evaluation, analysis, research, teaching, etc., and who make original layout designs based on the above, do not need the permission of the layout design right holder and do not pay any remuneration to him."

The recognition of reverse engineering of integrated circuits by laws of various countries is actually to make reverse engineering an exception to the exclusive right of layout design. This is not only an affirmation of the industry's usual practice, but also a need for the healthy development of the industry. The expression of ideas in integrated circuit layout design cannot be as casual as the creation of works. It is restricted by many factors such as technology, process, and materials. The expression of its ideas is very limited. Excessive protection of such very limited expression of ideas will inevitably lead to a monopoly of ideas, which is very unfavorable to the healthy development of the industry. Therefore, allowing reverse engineering under certain conditions is not only a restriction on the reproduction right of layout design, but also a means to encourage technological progress.

The provisions of the layout design protection laws of various countries on reverse engineering are to allow and encourage the use of reverse engineering means to dissect, analyze and understand the design ideas and design methods of other people's products in order to design compatible products, or make further improvements on the basis of other people's products, so as to manufacture more technologically advanced integrated circuit circuits. In this sense, reverse engineering plays at least two roles. First, it promotes market competition. In the integrated circuit industry, reverse engineering is called the "second source" of products, that is, competitors can use reverse engineering to manufacture chips with the same functionality and compatibility, giving the market and consumers more choices. Allowing and encouraging reverse engineering and promoting the formation of second sources can obviously promote market competition. Second, it promotes the development of integrated circuit technology. Competitors reverse engineering other people's products not to copy other people's mask works, but to create more advanced integrated circuit products based on analysis and research. This is actually to encourage competitors to engage in technological innovation based on existing products, thereby promoting the continuous advancement of integrated circuit technology.

Of course, if the integrated circuit product obtained through reverse design is highly similar to the original product in layout, it is possible that the layout design rights of the original product have been infringed. However, similarity is a very vague concept. In the judicial practice of the United States, it is generally considered that infringement is considered to occur if the identical parts of the layout exceed 70%. Even so, the identification of "identical parts" is still a complex issue.

Since reverse engineering is "suspected" of being illegal, how can we avoid this? The answer is:

Implementing reverse analysis correctly

As early as 2001, domestic experts and scholars expressed concerns about the abuse of reverse analysis technology, worrying that design companies' excessive reliance on reverse design would constrain their desire and thinking for innovation. Some experts and scholars even proposed the radical view that "reverse design should be banned." In the United States, where the integrated circuit industry is relatively mature, the industry's attitude towards reverse analysis is more pragmatic. Most of the larger integrated circuit design companies allocate R&D funds every year to purchase technical analysis, competition analysis, patent analysis and other services from professional reverse analysis companies.

my country's integrated circuit design capabilities are backward. At this stage, we should correctly and legally use reverse analysis technology to improve design levels, avoid patent infringement, obtain patent evidence and promote healthy competition.

1. Applied to competition analysis and technology analysis

To develop my country's integrated circuit design industry, we must continue to innovate and accumulate independent intellectual property rights. Since the domestic integrated circuit industry lags far behind, designers should actively refer to and learn from foreign advanced design technologies. For commercial interests, many large foreign companies are independently developing their own technologies. Technical solutions and design techniques are rarely mentioned in public documents, and can only be studied and researched through reverse analysis.

2. Application in patent analysis

In the integrated circuit industry, patent infringement often occurs, and many infringements occur without the designers realizing it. As Chinese design companies continue to improve their awareness of intellectual property rights, they are paying more and more attention to applying for patent protection for new technologies. At the same time, they are also actively investigating other companies' patents during product development to avoid patent infringement.

In countries with developed semiconductor industries, design companies not only compete with each other in the product market, but also in the field of patents. Many design companies conduct patent infringement analysis on a large number of chips every year to obtain evidence for litigation. Patents have become a business model. Some design companies do not even have specific products, but simply apply for or purchase a large number of patents, and then obtain commercial benefits through patent licensing.

In order for my country's design companies to grow and develop, they need to work hard on product technology and marketing, and also develop their own patent strategies. It can be expected that as foreign companies have already mastered a large number of integrated circuit patents, the patent lawsuits faced by Chinese integrated circuit design companies will continue to increase. Therefore, domestic companies should apply for patent technology on the one hand, and actively conduct patent analysis on new products of foreign companies on the other hand, so as to have evidence support when conducting patent defense in the future.

3. Applied to chip imitation

When insufficient technical accumulation and technical capabilities make it impossible to carry out forward design, or when forward design cannot meet compatibility requirements, the legal use of chip copying technology becomes an important way of chip design.

When imitating chips, attention should be paid to applicable conditions to avoid intellectual property disputes. Chip imitation is completely legal in the following three situations.

(1) Chip imitation is not used to gain commercial benefits. When military chips are banned, restricted or discontinued, and forward design cannot meet compatibility requirements, chip imitation becomes the only feasible design method. For national security reasons, limited chip imitation in non-commercial areas does not violate intellectual property laws.

(2) The patent and copyright of the counterfeit chip have expired. The copyright and patent rights of integrated circuits have a certain validity period. my country's "Regulations on the Protection of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs" stipulates that "the protection period of the exclusive right to layout design is 10 years, calculated from the date of application for registration of the layout design or the date of first commercial use anywhere in the world, whichever is earlier. However, regardless of whether it is registered or put into commercial use, the layout design will no longer be protected by these regulations 15 years after the date of completion of its creation." my country's "Patent Law" stipulates that "the term of invention patents is 20 years." Therefore, when the intellectual property rights of counterfeit chips expire, chip counterfeiting does not constitute infringement.

(3) The chip counterfeiting unit has obtained authorization from the original chip designer. Some design companies stop producing older or poorly selling chip products, so that system manufacturers that have already used the chip cannot obtain chip supply sources. At this time, the system manufacturer can apply for authorization from the original chip design unit and counterfeit the chip if the authorization is permitted.

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