Development of a software protection scheme for the die attach equipment

Abstract

European Semiconductor Equipment Company (ESEC) is ranked as the No. 1 die attach equipment maker in the world, in terms of market share. At ESEC, the die attach equipment or the Die Bonders are build on an expandable platform concept. The equipment are built based on one base-configuration with additional configuration or feature that can be added on to the base. The expandability allows for flexibility in catering for different product requirements, in terms of accuracy and speed of production. With this special platform, ESEC can tailor to the various package specifications by expanding the capability on the same equipment. This expandable capability ensures that manufacturers can be extremely competitive producing different applications with the same equipment. The objective of this project is to adopt a software protection technology, to guard against unauthorized usage of software features on the machine. The primary requirement is to integrate a software protection scheme that is not too costly to implement but is difficult or costly for the hacker to break.