The global semiconductor supply chain faces urgent challenges that threaten both operational integrity and national security, including widespread counterfeiting, sophisticated cyber and physical threats, and inadequate visibility across successive supply chain tiers. These threats are intensified by fragmented product metrology practices, insufficient component verification, and persistent concerns over intellectual property protection, which discourage data sharing among manufacturers.
To address these vulnerabilities, a protocol has been developed on a decentralized distributed ledger architecture designed to secure and audit data sharing across multiple supply chain tiers while preserving and protecting intellectual property rights. The protocol employs a selective disclosure mechanism, allowing data owners to share critical provenance and authentication information with authorized parties, maintaining transparency without compromising sensitive manufacturing details. This balance is achieved through a zero-trust security architecture that integrates verifiable credentials and smart contract enforcement, establishing trust even between previously untrusted partners.
A notable innovation in this approach is the industry-wide alignment with existing semiconductor standards used by Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions. This collaboration brings together major industry players and focuses on the adoption of standardized, machine-readable component specifications to replace current PDF-based documentation, paving the way for universal implementation through recognized standards bodies.
By systematically registering metrology data and accurately tracking component histories through each custody and ownership transfer, the protocol creates an auditable chain of evidence that increases supply chain resilience and enables rapid incident response when new threats appear. Initial testing demonstrates a reduction in vulnerability to supply chain attacks and improved identification of compromised components, all while maintaining the integrity of manufacturers’ proprietary processes.
This distributed, standards-driven methodology eliminates single points of failure and enables new levels of supply chain transparency without sacrificing security or intellectual property while preserving context across different encodings, a balance long sought in semiconductor manufacturing. Industry participation in adopting and refining this protocol is essential to future-proofing the semiconductor ecosystem against ever-evolving threats.
