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This self-destructing computer chip can protect top secret data

By James Lu - on 14 Sep 2015, 2:05pm

This self-destructing computer chip can protect top secret data

Image source: Xerox PARC

Engineers at Xerox PARC have developed a computer chip that will self-destruct upon command, just like the top secret data tapes used in Mission Impossible.  

The chip, developed as part of the US Government agency DARPA’s vanishing programmable resources project, is made from a glass substance similar in composition to Gorilla Glass, the Corning-made tough glass used in the displays of numerous smartphones. On command, the chip can shatter into thousands of pieces too small for reconstruction.

“The applications we are interested in are data security and things like that,” said Gregory Whiting, a senior scientist at PARC in Palo Alto, California. “We really wanted to come up with a system that was very rapid and compatible with commercial electronics.”

In a demonstration at a DARPA event last week, the glass was stressed to breaking point by heat provided by a small laser. When the laser is switched on, a small resistor heats up and the glass shatters into thousands of pieces. Even after the glass is shattered, stress remaining in the fragments continues breaking into even smaller pieces for a few seconds afterwards.

Here's the demo:

Source: CIO & IDG.tv

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