Authentication of Printed Circuit Boards based on Surface Data Coding

Taswar Iqbal, Kai-Dietrich Wolf, and Daniel Lichte

Keywords

Counterfeit detection, printed circuit boards (PCBs) authentication, information hiding

Abstract

In this work the idea of data hiding is extended to the authentication of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and our first research findings are presented. A data hiding technique for the PCB surfaces is proposed while taking into account the constraints imposed by the PCB manufacturing process and the functionality of the PCBs. Visual surface features on the PCB surface are used for information encoding. For information extraction from the coded PCB surface, a data reading technique is proposed that is based on sub-pixel level edge detection. Key challenges in the PCB authentication process are identified. For experimental purpose real PCB surfaces are considered in the data hiding and extraction process. The coded PCB surfaces also pass the electronic testing, a standard test for the PCB quality control. Finally, experimental results are presented along with the future work.

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