Emerging threats to the semiconductor supply chain have resulted in industry efforts to address the question of semiconductor device provenance. Enforcing the integrity of the semiconductor supply chain is not a new concept. For decades fabless semiconductor companies have recognized the loss of supply chain control and the resulting need to enforce trust as part of managing the risk commensurate with a large offshore contract manufacturing operation. At the core of the existing processes and methods designed to enforce semiconductor device provenance lies the requirement to identify and track the movement of materials and devices as they travel through the manufacturing lifecycle. The ideas behind a Global Unique ID and an interoperable Traceability Standard can draw from the lessons learned by previous industry experiences. Although the study of existing proprietary semiconductor traceability systems can provide good ideas for solving the Global traceability problem, the globalization part of the traceability problem introduces several new and unique problems that will require strong collaborative innovation at the standards level.
