Fortifying the NAND Flash Supply Chain with Innovative Security Primitives

The infiltration of counterfeit electronics into the global supply chain is a growing concern that poses significant challenges for both manufacturers and consumers. This paper introduces Flash-Odometer, an innovative technique designed to estimate the age and usage statistics of NAND flash memory blocks. Flash-Odometer works by analyzing key characteristics of NAND arrays, which are highly dependent on the defect density in the gate dielectric of the flash memory cells. Our experimental evaluation, conducted on state-of-the-art 3D NAND chips from a leading manufacturer, demonstrates that the Flash-Odometer accurately predicts the program-erase (PE) cycle count of NAND memory blocks. This provides a unique and reliable method for estimating chip usage, which is instrumental in detecting recycled memory chips.