Silicon Reverse Engineering: From Die Shots to Digital Logic - A Beginner's Guide

Explore silicon reverse engineering through a 37-minute conference talk from the 38th Chaos Communication Congress that delves into decoding proprietary chips, particularly from a 1986 digital synthesizer. Learn the fundamentals of analyzing gate array chips from the 80s and 90s, including techniques for dissolving chips in acid, microscope analysis, and understanding internal components like ROMs, security features, and DSP algorithms. Discover how to identify different chip components, interpret die shots, and use modern tools to automatically generate Verilog code. Follow along as a software developer shares their journey into hardware reverse engineering, offering practical insights on successful techniques, common pitfalls, and custom tools developed for extracting mask ROMs and analyzing chip architecture.