PCB protection against Reverse engineering

[lpcam]

Is there any way to protect my PCB against reverse engineering.

The only way I found is to encapsulate my PCB into epoxy. I also red that it makes reverse engineering harder but not impossible.

 

[melone]

The short answer is no. ANYTHING can be reversed engineered, given enough time and resources.

 

[geekEE]

I was at one company that had the markings removed from all the major ICs and marked with in-house part numbers. As Melone said, if someone had sufficient time and resources, they could still reverse engineer it. However, the idea is to make it so that reverse engineering is not economically feasible.

 

[IRstuff]

This subject has been discussed a number of times:
thread797-21808
thread248-160025
thread248-117546

TTFN

 

[VEBill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War

 

[nbucska]

GeekEE : it is even better to mark some IC's with
the part# of other standard parts so the copying is easy
just doesn't work. How much frustration is necessary
to reverse engineer a wellknown off the shelf part ?


Plesae read FAQ240-1032
My WEB: <

http://geocities.com/nbucska/>

 

[itsmoked]

nbucska; that would work really well if you could cleanly stip the original numbers off. I like it! You could set it up so the wrong parts are automatically damaged on power up. Sweet!

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[cbarn24050]

First you need to ask is your pcb worth reverse engineering, if not (most likely) then why bother, if it is (very unlikely) patent it.

 

[IRstuff]

Patent protection is only really effective in countries that protect IP. Places in Asia and Arica do not stricly enforce patent protection.

TTFN

 

[zeitghost]

Patent protection is only good if you have deep pockets... to pay all the scumbag lawyers...

 

[IRstuff]

Or scumbag officials to do their jobs.

TTFN

 

[nbucska]

A company wanted to copy a device consisting of one two
layer PCB with "standard logic IC-s". Being on limited
budget they bought one, made a layout DWG and a BOM,
cut off the parts and generated wire list and copied the
PCB.

They stuffed the first thousands board before starting to
test, hoping that most would work but none of them did.

At this point they tried to draw a schematics -- it didn't
make sense. Getting desperate they rented a logic analyser
and spent their remaining time and money trying to
understand. When they found out that some of the IC-s
were custom ASIC-s, it was too late...


Plesae read FAQ240-1032
My WEB: <

http://geocities.com/nbucska/>

 

[ScottyUK]

Hahahahahaha....

 

[cbarn24050]

Patent protection is relatively cheap compared to marketing, manafacturing, R&D, approvals ect. Of course it's not perfect but what is.

 

[VEBill]

What next? Internet-enabled 'Product Activation' for hardware?

 

[Comcokid]

I worked at a company that had a small timer module they made in volume. It was copied (by a garage shop in the US) so exactly that it would fit on the same pogo test fixture.

However, we designed a power output with a base-current starved transistor so that under short circuit conditions the transistor would heat but allow time for the external fuse to blow. They substituted a transistor with higher beta that was cheaper. On their module, the transistor would blow protecting the fuse!

Just because somebody copies something doesn't mean they get it right.

 

[jimkirk]

A guy I knew decades ago worked for a company that used printed circuit boards made on a glass substrate. (Not fiberglass, real glass, like in windows.) The board was mounted in an enclosure that had a spring-loaded weight that would shatter the board if you opened the box.

Of course even that could be x-rayed and forensically examined, but these were in an early cable TV system mounted outside on someone's house. they just wanted to keep the average Joe from trying to steal cable service, and be sure that any tampering was evident.

 

[chai18]

I worked for a company that built instrumentation. That designed a battery powered pulsing circuit for calibration use that fit in your pocket. A major test equipment company bought one. A few months later, they were handing them out at shows as gifts.
The company also built very good wide bandwidth amplifiers (to gHz). To keep them from being copied, they removed the manufacturer information from the comonents. It worked.