Local Heating Attacks on Flash Memory Devices

This paper shows how lasers can be used to implement modification attacks on EEPROM and Flash memory devices. This was achieved with inexpensive laser-diode module mounted on a microscope. By locally heating up a memory cell inside a memory array, the contents of the memory can be altered. As a result, the security of a semiconductor chip can be compromised. Even if changing each individual bit is not possible due to the small size of a memory cell, cryptographic keys can still be recovered with brute force attacks. This paper also discusses the limits for the safe use of lasers in semi-invasive attacks without damaging the device under test.