Engineers at Xerox PARC have developed a chip that will self destruct itself upon command providing a potentially revolutionary tool for high-security applications. The chip, developed as part of DARPA’s vanishing programmable resources project, could be used to store data such as encryption keys and, on command, shatter into thousands of pieces so small, reconstruction is impossible. Chip based on Gorilla Glass, the Corning-produced tough glass used in the displays of numerous smartphones.
In a demonstration, the glass was stressed to breaking point by heat. When a circuit was switched on, a small resistor heated up and the glass shattered into thousands of pieces. Even after it broke up, stress remained in the fragments and they continued breaking into even smaller pieces for tens of seconds afterwards.
