Self-Destructing Computer Chips Go 'Boom' In Seconds

A new type of self-destructing computer chip has been developed that can destroy itself in just about five seconds. Developed by Novel Electronics Group at PARC, a Xerox company; the chip uses silicon wafers integrated with tempered glass. This glass can be shattered into smithereens using localised heating. Gregory Whiting, a materials scientist who worked on the development of the chip informs that heat can be turned on remotely using wi-fi or radio signal.

The chip was put on display at the DARPA organised 'Wait, What? Technology Forum' in St. Louis. The creators of the chip believe that this new type of chip technology can allow for easier recycling of the electronics and offer unparalleled security for the data stored on electronic hardware.

Whiting told LiveScience that the team began with an aim to use off-the-shelf products to create self-destructing chip. They considered various types of traditional destruction techniques like vaporization and dissolving before settling with the tempered glass. Typically glass is tempered by cooling its edges. As the exterior of the glass shrinks, the exterior is compressed while the interior stays warmer, while maintaining tensile stress.


If the piece of safety glass is broken, it explodes and shatters into little pieces. The team used a new technique to temper the glass, called ion exchange. Beginning with a thin piece of glass rich in sodium ions, the researchers put it into hot bath of potassium nitrate. The Potassium ions try to react with Sodium ions and in the process create enormous tension in the glass.

The new method lets the chip makers to put silicon wafers directly on the glass, and the resulting product looks like a piece of glass with thin metallic lines. In order to destroy the chip, the researchers trigger localised heating that creates a fracture in the glass. It spreads throughout the glass very quickly and destructs the glass into small pieces just about 250 micrometers thick.

The research team says that their method is way more effective than traditional mechanisms; which tend to retain data. The self-destruction technique not only erases all the data from the chip but also alters the tiny bits that make it almost impossible to put together.

Source: This Chip Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds | Live Science