However, upon reflection the short answer to my question is "no, it will not mean the end of teardowns" but it is likely to make them much harder.

No more crack the case, list the company names and part numbers. Instead companies will have to be prepared to dissolve away the packaging and identify the markings on the silicon die, except those too may have been encrypted. So it will require engineering gurus who can do cross die comparisons and use their experience to identify "the look" of particular company's processes. However, that will not necessarily help identify the chip function.

As we pointed out July 6 an examination of firmware, crash logs and cache dumps can reveal tell-tale references to processors and provide a better way to find out what is going on than simply deconstructing the circuit boards.

For years the IDMs have inserted tell-tale circuits into their ICs to enable buyers to determine if they are genuine. Unfortunately that doesn't always help with mislabeled parts where the clock frequency rating has been falsified by grey market suppliers to get a better price.

We have reported that Algotronix Ltd. (Edinburgh, Scotland) a consultancy spun out of Xilinx in 1998, is offering DesignTag, an active digital circuit element that can be designed-in to ICs and FPGAs and detected through-package by an external scanner (see May 25 story). Algotronix was touting the DesignTag at the Design Automation Conference in June as a means of supporting the enforcement of IP core and CAD tool license agreements. However, the company also noted at the time that it could be used to identify falsely labeled chips and could be deployed in either an open or closed manner.

So have the SIA and SEMI latched on to Algotronix' idea? Apparently not as the DesignTag doesn't require any package markings at all as the information is inside the chip and read through-package.