Startup introduces 'unclonable' chip technology
A Palo Alto security and authentication startup known for its "unclonable" silicon chips, relaunched Wednesday as Verayo in an effort to move its focus from government defense contracts to commercial markets.
The fabless semiconductor company offers a unique small electronic circuit that relies on technology known as Physically Unclonable Functions, or PUFs, a type of "DNA or fingerprint" for silicon chips, developed by technologists at MIT.
PUF is designed to exploit slight inconsistencies in each integrated circuit (IC) to create a unique digital signature for each chip. "Similar to people, no two silicon chips are exactly alike," says Vivek Khandelwal, Verayo director of marketing. "You can have two chips from the same wafer in a Pentium laptop, but they are slightly different."