Trusted traceability in the semiconductor supply chain

A process engineer’s view of how blockchain provides supply chain confidence.

If you’ve ever tried to answer a simple question like “Is this chip genuine and did we build it exactly the way we intended?”, you know how quickly it turns into a crosssystem scavenger hunt. Counterfeits, design tampering and hardware, software and firmware injections are all real failure modes for ODMs, and the hardest part is proving what happened, when and where across a long chain of handoffs.

From a process standpoint, the complexity is the nemesis. With 16,000 suppliers worldwide, terabytes of daily data, multiple design/manufacturing stages, numerous areas where data is siloed and insider threats at every stage, the traditional trust-based model has collapsed and keeping a zero-trust posture means that every stage gate needs evidence of who touched what, which tool and version were used and what the results were.

The main challenge: How do we build end-to-end, trusted traceability from design through deployment without slowing the line down or creating a documentation burden that no one can sustain?

In many organizations, the current workaround is still manual: audits, spreadsheet reconciliation and point-in-time checks. That approach doesn’t scale with today’s data volumes and it adds cycle time right where you can least afford it.

What evidence are electronics design companies demanding and what does it mean for semiconductor traceability?

Across defense, aerospace, medical, automotive and industrial equipment, semiconductor quality is especially critical. When a chip’s silicon, mask revision, firmware or test coverage is wrong, the field impact can be severe and recall costs extensive.

Counterfeit components add another layer of risk: degraded performance, intermittent failures and hard-to-troubleshoot issues that show up late in the lifecycle. Process engineers need to ensure tight device genealogy and fast, trustworthy root-cause paths when something goes out of spec.

Can as-designed vs. as-built close the traceability gap?

In day-to-day conversation, as-designed and as-built get blended together, but for verification, they’re different.

As-designed: The approved baseline specs, netlists, layout, requirements and release versions. This is what you intended to build.

As-built: This is what actually ran through the flow: materials, tools, test programs, firmware loads, exceptions, etc. as well as the final shipped configuration.

Trusted traceability: The ability to prove, using objective, tamper-evident evidence, that the as-built matches the approved as-designed baseline at each stage gate or, if it doesn’t, identifying exactly where and why it diverged.

Customers and regulators typically want both backward traceability and forward tracking. Together, those capabilities support faster containment, cleaner investigations and more credible compliance evidence.

Where does blockchain fit in a traceability architecture? Moving past point solutions.

Blockchain is useful here: instead of each party maintaining a separate “version of the truth,” you get a shared record of key events and approvals that is extremely difficult to alter after the fact. This lets you define standard traceability events (stage-gate releases, lot splits/merges, test signoffs, shipping/receiving and RMA actions) and record them in a way that downstream partners can verify without asking you to email screenshots or re-run reports. In practice, blockchain is implemented incrementally across semiconductor lifecycle stages (concept through deployment), often by piloting in high-risk areas first, storing only critical transaction data in the blockchain and using links or pointers to other data sources for the supporting detail.

The payoff is operational: faster genealogy lookups, stronger design-to-build integrity checks, earlier anomaly detection and cleaner audit evidence. Done well, it reduces time spent reconciling systems and increases confidence that “as-designed” and “as-built” remain aligned.

More teams are starting to use blockchain-enabled traceability as a practical way to share verifiable evidence across the supply chain. In parallel, regulators (including the U.S. DoD) are asking for controls that aren’t just documented but measurable, with defined data, defined checks and repeatable verification.

Why has security become a process requirement rather than a differentiator?

From a manufacturing and supplier-quality viewpoint, the risk grows with every handoff. Some semiconductor companies work with thousands of suppliers, which means traceability is only as strong as the weakest interface between systems. As more of the lifecycle becomes digital, protecting design and production data becomes part of basic process control: access, approvals, versioning and tamper-evident records.

Counterfeiting has also become more sophisticated, ranging from refurbished parts to unauthorized hardware/firmware modifications. One example is Amazon’s report of an unauthorized microchip found on an ¹Elemental Technologiesvideo compression board, raising concerns about how unexpected components can be introduced and how difficult they are to detect without strong build genealogy and verification checkpoints.

The practical requirement is a control plan that can (1) pinpoint where an anomaly entered the flow and (2) stop propagation before it reaches downstream operations or customers. That requires consistent event capture at stage gates, clear ownership of approvals and the ability to validate records across partners.

Every step of fabrication, assembly and test that is not fully automated poses a significant risk. “Dicing and assembly have lots of risks – especially with humans in the loop.”

John Allgair, Program Manager, Advanced Systems Integration, BRIDG

Why does trusted traceability matter?

Regulatory compliance: The U.S. DoD National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 224 has already set the bar and companies are running out of time. Defense microelectronics products must now meet trusted supply chain and operational security standards measured in real-time. Without “measurable” traceability, organizations face exclusion from defense contracts. This is not a future requirement; it is an active mandate shaping procurement decisions today.

Design integrity: Your products are under active attack right now. As semiconductor designs move through fabrication, assembly, testing and provisioning, adversaries systematically exploit each stage to introduce malicious code, design alterations and counterfeit components. Conventional security approaches cannot detect these threats at scale and every unmeasured transaction is a potential breach.

Supply chain complexity: Every repair, maintenance event and refurbished component creates an entry point for counterfeits. Aircraft, automobiles and industrial systems with long lifecycles face constant vulnerability through maintenance and repair channels. Even short-lifecycle products like smartphones are systematically compromised through independent repair services. You cannot monitor these risks without real-time visibility.

Intellectual property protection: The semiconductor itself is the outcome of a long, complex system of digital processes and transactions, all of which can be compromised. Without verified authentication of every step, your IP is being extracted throughout the entire development pipeline. Attackers are actively exploiting this exposure.

Operational visibility: Most OEMs cannot answer the critical question right now: does what I built match what I designed? Without real-time visibility in every stage, you cannot detect counterfeits, authenticate components or respond to breaches before they reach customers and damage your reputation.

What are the common implementation challenges that usually cause programs to get stuck?

Your supply chain is vulnerable right now. Compromised parts can slip into systems because most teams still can’t reliably verify transactions across all data sources. Trusted traceability means validating key events end-to-end, from raw materials through design, fabrication, assembly, testing and deployment. At the scale we’re talking about (terabytes of data a day across thousands of suppliers), manual checks simply won’t keep up. Without transaction-level verification, backdoors, trojans and unauthorized changes can enter production and remain hidden until something fails in the field.

Your IP is being stolen at every handoff. Semiconductor designs move between IP owners, ODMs, foundries and joint ventures, and every transfer is a chance for something to go wrong. Adversaries don’t need to “break in” if they can alter a file, swap a spec or slip in a backdoor during a routine exchange, and most organizations still don’t have cryptographic integrity checks at each step. The result is that a single compromised design can quietly propagate across millions of deployed units.

You cannot answer where your chips came from. A typical device may change hands 15+ times, yet many companies still struggle with the basics: Where did this chip originate? Who handled it and when? Under what conditions? That lack of visibility gets expensive fast, especially during shortages when you’re forced to buy through less-direct channels. Without a trustworthy chain of custody, a single bad batch can turn into a recall, customer escalation and long-term damage to your brand.

Your employees are your greatest security risk right now. Insider threats show up throughout the lifecycle, from design through fabrication, test and deployment, because insiders already have access and context. In less-automated steps (like dicing and assembly), it’s possible to introduce changes, steal designs or swap components with limited accountability. Traditional security controls aren’t enough if they don’t create clear, verifiable records of who did what, using which tools and approved versions.

Your competitors are already moving; you are falling behind. The old assumption, “we know our suppliers, so we’re fine,” doesn’t hold up anymore. Modern threats push you toward zero-trust verification, where every transaction, device and data source has to be authenticated no matter who it comes from. The DoD has already set expectations (and commercial requirements tend to follow). If you wait, you’ll keep absorbing the cost of refurbished parts sold as new, counterfeit components and avoidable recalls, while others build supply chains they can prove.

What can you do to achieve trusted traceability across your semiconductor supply chain?

The semiconductor supply chain cannot be secured through traditional audits at today’s speed or threat level. If you can’t prove that as-built matches as-designed at each stage gate, you are operating on trust and hoping to catch issues before customers or regulators do. A blockchain-based distributed ledger paired with a secure digital twin lets you verify critical transactions, lock down the source and identify anomalies quickly enough to act. You don’t need to solve the entire supply chain at once, but you do need to start now. Pick the highest-risk lifecycle stages, monitor and document each key stage-gate event, and expand from there, starting with the handoffs most exposed to insider threats and supplier variability.

Ready to discover how to build measurable, verifiable, trusted traceability across your semiconductor supply chain? Download our white paper: Security Throughout the Semiconductor Lifecycle to learn how Siemens defines trusted traceability and the data it emphasizes throughout the semiconductor lifecycle.

References:

1. Bloomberg LP, Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, “The big hack: how China used a tiny chip to infiltrate U.S. companies,” October 4, 2018.