Why Does Every Chiplet Supply Chain Need a Chain of Custody?

The race to build larger, more capable AI systems has fundamentally changed semiconductor design. As the industry embraces heterogeneous integration and chiplet-based architecture, performance is no longer the only measure of success. Increasingly, the ability to prove that every component can be trusted throughout its lifecycle is becoming just as critical.

The semiconductor industry has largely solved the engineering challenges of building chiplet-based systems. Now it faces a far more difficult question:

Can every chiplet in that package be trusted—not just at deployment, but throughout its entire journey from design to system assembly?

As AI systems become larger, more modular, and increasingly assembled from chiplets sourced across multiple organizations, security is no longer limited to protecting the finished device. It must extend across every stage of the lifecycle—from RTL design and manufacturing to provisioning, packaging, and final system integration.

Every chiplet moves through multiple organizations before becoming part of a finished system. Every handoff, from design and manufacturing to provisioning, packaging,  assembly, and deployment creates another point where system integrity must be preserved. Every one of those transitions is also a potential attack surface.

This is why security can no longer be confined to the chip itself. It must establish an unbroken chain of custody across the entire silicon supply chain, ensuring that every participant can verify the integrity, ownership, and authenticity of the components they receive.

Chiplets Change More than Silicon Architecture

Chiplets promise faster innovation by allowing semiconductor companies to combine best-in-class silicon rather than building increasingly complex monolithic SoCs.

Instead of designing one enormous chip, organizations can assemble specialized compute, memory, I/O, security, and accelerator chiplets into a single package. This modular approach accelerates development, improves manufacturing efficiency, enables greater silicon reuse, and allows products to be scaled by combining standardized building blocks instead of creating multiple monolithic designs.

But the real transformation goes far beyond packaging.

Chiplets fundamentally optimize how semiconductor products are designed, manufactured, and delivered across an ecosystem of companies. This paradigm change opens up new opportunities, as well as new risks.

A single package may include chiplets designed by different engineering teams, manufactured at different foundries, packaged by specialized OSAT providers, provisioned by another manufacturing partner, and ultimately integrated into a complete system by an OEM.

What was once a relatively linear manufacturing flow has evolved into a highly distributed engineering ecosystem.

This shift creates enormous opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and faster time to market. Industry initiatives such as UCIe and the Open Compute Project (OCP) are helping establish standards that make interoperable chiplet ecosystems possible, enabling organizations to mix and match silicon from multiple sources more efficiently.

However, interoperability alone is not enough.

Every organization involved in designing, manufacturing, provisioning, packaging, or assembling a chiplet becomes part and parcel of the product's security story.

As chiplet ecosystems continue to expand, protecting individual chips is no longer sufficient. Security must extend across every participant in the supply chain, making end-to-end assurance just as important as interoperability and performance.

The Greatest Security Risk Lies Beyond the Silicon

When people think about semiconductor security, they often focus on secure boot, firmware integrity, encryption, or runtime attacks. These capabilities remain essential. But many of the most significant compromises occur long before a device is ever powered on.

Every transition in the semiconductor supply chain represents a transfer of ownership.

That includes those exemplary steps:

• RTL moving into implementation
• Silicon entering manufacturing
• Devices leaving the foundry
• Firmware being provisioned during manufacturing
• Chiplets moving through OSAT assembly
• Final systems being delivered to OEMs and customers

Each transition introduces another opportunity for unauthorized modification.

An attacker does not necessarily need to alter the silicon itself.

Compromising provisioning keys, replacing firmware, introducing unauthorized credentials, modifying one-time programmable (OTP) configuration data, or exploiting insecure ownership transfers can permanently undermine the integrity of the final system before it ever reaches the customer.

As chiplet ecosystems become increasingly distributed, these risks multiply. Every additional participant expands the attack surface, making supply chain assurance as important as protecting the silicon itself.

Why Traditional Security is not Enough

Many organizations assume that implementing secure boot or encrypting firmware is sufficient to protect a chiplet-based system.

It isn't.

Security mechanisms added after manufacturing cannot guarantee that the underlying hardware has remained authentic throughout its journey.

If ownership cannot be verified...

If provisioning cannot be authenticated...

If firmware cannot be proven genuine...

...then secure boot begins from an already compromised foundation.

The challenge is no longer simply protecting software.

It is protecting ownership, provenance, and integrity throughout the manufacturing lifecycle. That requires rethinking security as something that begins long before the operating system loads, or even before firmware is installed.

Security Needs a Chain of Custody

The answer is not another isolated security feature. It is an end-to-end chain of custody.

The concept is familiar in industries such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and logistics, where every transfer of a high-value asset must be recorded, authenticated, and verified. Chiplet ecosystems now require the same level of assurance, effectively delivered through transparency and auditability.

A chain of custody is far more than manufacturing traceability. It establishes who owns a chiplet at every stage of its lifecycle, who is authorized to provision it, how ownership is securely transferred between organizations, and how unauthorized modifications are prevented. Every transition is cryptographically verified, preserving the integrity established during design through manufacturing, packaging, and deployment.

Without this capability, every ownership transfer becomes a potential opportunity for compromise. With it, each participant inherits cryptographic assurance that the device has remained authentic and uncompromised throughout its journey.

This means every chiplet should leave the factory already protected, not shipped in an open state waiting to be secured later. Instead, security should begin with mechanisms that enable:

• Secure ownership transfer
• Protected key provisioning
• Authenticated firmware installation
• Device identity
• Secure boot
• Cryptographic attestation

Rather than isolated security controls protecting individual stages, every manufacturing step builds upon the integrity established by the previous one. The result is an unbroken chain of assurance from silicon creation to deployed system.

A Framework for Securing Chiplet Systems

One useful way to think about chiplet security is across three complementary layers:

Layer	Purpose
Trusted Supply Chain	Secure manufacturing, ownership transfer, provisioning, and chain of custody.
Trusted Platform	Secure boot, firmware integrity, operating systems, and runtime protection.
Trusted Identity	Device identity, cryptographic attestation, and verifiable provenance throughout the lifecycle.

Each layer depends on the one before it. Without a secure supply chain, higher-level software protections have no trustworthy foundation.

A Hardware Root of Trust Makes the Chain of Custody Possible

A chain of custody is only meaningful if it can be enforced. That is where a hardware root of trust becomes essential.

More than simply another security IP block, it provides the cryptographic foundation that enables organizations to establish provable ownership, authenticate provisioning operations, securely onboard third-party chiplets, and preserve system integrity across every manufacturing stage. In other words, it transforms security policies into enforceable controls.

From the moment a chiplet leaves the fab, the hardware root of trust ensures that it is never in an unsecured default state. Ownership is established from the beginning, and every subsequent transfer can be authenticated before new firmware, configuration data, or manufacturing credentials are introduced.

This foundation enables secure provisioning, authenticated firmware updates, cryptographic identity, secure boot, and device authentication—all while preserving the integrity of the overall system as it moves through multiple organizations.

Most importantly, it allows security to survive every transfer across the manufacturing ecosystem. Rather than re-establishing integrity at each stage, every participant inherits cryptographically verifiable assurance from the previous one, creating an unbroken chain of custody from RTL to the final system.

From Protection to Proof: Why Attestation Matters

For chiplet-based systems, protecting firmware is only part of the story. Increasingly, organizations must also demonstrate that the underlying hardware, including the security components responsible for protecting cryptographic keys, identities, and provisioning mechanisms, has remained authentic throughout manufacturing and deployment.

This is where attestation fundamentally changes the security conversation. Traditional security focuses on preventing attacks. Attestation focuses on proving integrity. Rather than simply claiming that a chiplet is secure, manufacturers can cryptographically demonstrate:

• Where the chiplet originated
• Who owned it throughout manufacturing
• How it was provisioned
• Which firmware was installed
• Whether critical hardware security components remain authentic
• That every stage of manufacturing preserved the integrity of the device

This distinction is becoming increasingly important as semiconductor supply chains grow more distributed. Customers, regulators, hyperscalers, and ecosystem partners increasingly expect organizations not only to implement security controls but also to demonstrate, with verifiable evidence, that those controls remain effective throughout the manufacturing lifecycle.

Attestation transforms security from an internal engineering capability into an externally verifiable assurance. It provides every stakeholder with confidence that the chiplet they receive is the same chiplet that was designed, manufactured, provisioned, and assembled—without unauthorized modification.

In that sense, attestation becomes much more than a technical feature. It becomes the digital passport of the chiplet. Just as a passport documents the identity and journey of an individual, attestation provides cryptographic evidence of a chiplet's provenance, ownership, configuration, and integrity throughout its lifecycle.

For mission-critical markets such as automotive, aerospace, defense, healthcare, and hyperscale AI, that level of assurance is rapidly becoming as valuable as silicon performance itself.

Turning Security into a Competitive Advantage

Security has traditionally been viewed as a cost of doing business, a necessary investment to reduce risk. In the era of chiplets, it can become something much more valuable. Organizations that establish an auditable chain of custody gain benefits that extend well beyond cybersecurity. They can:

• Strengthen supply chain assurance across multiple manufacturing partners
• Simplify compliance with emerging security and regulatory requirements
• Accelerate collaboration across distributed semiconductor ecosystems
• Increase customer confidence in mission-critical deployments
• Reduce the business risk associated with third-party silicon integration
• Differentiate themselves through demonstrable integrity and provenance

As heterogeneous integration becomes mainstream, customers will increasingly expect manufacturers to provide evidence—not simply assurances—that every component entering their systems has maintained its integrity throughout its lifecycle.

In other words, security is evolving from a defensive capability into a business enabler.

Organizations that can prove the authenticity and provenance of their chiplet ecosystems will be better positioned to earn customer confidence, streamline ecosystem collaboration, and meet the growing demands for supply chain transparency.

Enabling Trusted Chiplet Ecosystems

As chiplet ecosystems continue to mature, security cannot be solved by any single company.

It requires industry-wide collaboration across semiconductor vendors, IP providers, foundries, packaging houses, standards organizations, and system integrators.

This is why ecosystem initiatives such as UCIe and the Open Compute Project (OCP) are increasingly incorporating security and manageability into their evolving chiplet frameworks. Interoperability alone is not enough. The industry also needs common approaches to ownership, identity, provisioning, attestation, and lifecycle assurance.

Following the integration of Secure-IC into Cadence, this expertise has become part of Cadence's broader silicon security portfolio. Building on more than a decade of hardware security innovation, Cadence is helping customers embed security throughout the chiplet lifecycle—from architecture and IP integration through manufacturing and deployment.

Rather than treating security as an isolated IP block, Cadence's approach integrates hardware roots of trust, secure provisioning, cryptographic identity, secure boot, and attestation into a broader strategy for enabling trusted chiplet ecosystems. The objective is not simply to protect individual devices. It is to help establish an ecosystem where every participant can securely transfer ownership, verify integrity, and maintain assurance from silicon creation to deployed system.

The Future of Chiplets Depends on Verifiable Trust

The success of chiplets will not be determined solely by bandwidth, packaging technology, or interoperability standards. It will depend on whether every participant in the ecosystem can answer one fundamental question:

Can you prove this chiplet has remained authentic from design to deployment?

As AI infrastructure grows larger and semiconductor supply chains become increasingly distributed, organizations can no longer rely on implicit assumptions about the authenticity and integrity of every component.

They must establish cryptographic assurance that survives every manufacturing stage, every ownership transfer, and every system integration. That is why an end-to-end chain of custody is rapidly evolving from a security best practice into a foundational requirement for chiplet-based systems.

Just as every modern chiplet is expected to deliver higher performance, interoperability, and scalability, it should also provide verifiable integrity, authenticated provenance, and cryptographic evidence of its journey from manufacturing through deployment.

In a modular silicon world, security must be measurable—not assumed. Every chiplet should carry verifiable proof of its authenticity and integrity throughout its lifecycle. Compliance to open standards, such as OCP / FCSA (to which Cadence is a lead contributor) is key in this respect.

Want to learn more? Watch the full conference session by Sylvain GUILLEY, Fellow, Secure-IC R&D, Cadence, explore how a hardware root of trust, secure ownership transfer, and an end-to-end chain of custody help protect chiplet-based systems throughout the supply chain, and how Cadence is advancing secure chiplet ecosystems.