Access to the internal structure of integrated circuits through the use of decapsulation ("decapping") greatly expands a hardware attacker’s capabilities. Existing research mainly focuses on decapsulation for fault analysis during manufacturing using expensive lab-grade equipment. However, decapsulation can be achieved using low-cost consumer-grade laser engravers, making it accessible for security research.

In this work, we develop the hardware and software needed to convert a laser engraver to a laser-decapper capable of capturing high-resolution and high-magnification images to guide the process and document the end result. We describe experiments on integrated circuits and show that they can be decapsulated successfully using our setup. Additionally, our results provide the basis for further research on ensuring that integrated circuits remain functional after decapsulation, in order to perform hardware security research such as laser fault injection and electromagnetic side-channel attacks.