Self‐Destructing Secured Microchips by On‐Chip Triggered Energetic and Corrosive Attacks for Transient Electronics

Abstract The paper presents two techniques of triggered chip self‐destruction or transience toward realization of highly secured microchips. Both methods are developed to affect a surface transience where the chip surface is destroyed on trigger. The first transience method utilizes a solid‐state energetic exothermal energy release that melts the surface of the microchips and the second method involves release of a corrosive chemical agent on the target chip from a microfluidic plane that dissolves the surface of the chip. The exothermic energy release layer was developed as a spinnable nanothermite thin film with a self‐assembled CuO/Al nanothermite mixture densely dispersed in a Napalm‐B gelling agent. This thin film could be ignited through resistive heating or through an electric spark. In the other method, a microfluidic plane is fabricated over the target chip and demonstrably containing perfectly sealed reservoirs of different acidic agents is equipped to release them on being triggered on the chip to execute transience action. Both methods are developed as an add‐on technique without requiring any specialized chip design and are shown to successfully destroy silicon test microchips with electrical components in a short time ranging from less than a second to within 13 s of trigger activation.