All of Jonathan_H's Comments + Replies

1.⁠ ⁠Reading (not modifying) data from antifuse memory in a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller

That's correct. 

That said, chip modifications are done on the same FIB machine. The cost estimate still seems accurate to me.

Atomic-Scale Limitations: At 5nm, we're approaching atomic limits (silicon atoms are ~0.2nm). The physics of matter at this scale creates fundamental boundaries that better equipment cannot overcome.

H100s are manufactured on TSMC's "3nm" node (a brand name), which has a Gate Pitch of 48 nm and a Metal Pitch of 24 nm. The minimum ... (read more)

TL;DR: Less than you think, likely < 1000 USD.

The cost for renting such a machine (FIB) is 100-350 USD/h (depending on which university lab you choose). Some universities also offer to have one of their staff do the work for you (e.g., 165 USD/h at the University of Washington).

The duration for a single modification is less than 1 hour. 
Additionally, there is some non-FIB preparation time, which seems to be ~1 day if you do it for one chip; see here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.13276). 

I am currently mentoring a SPAR project that calculates more accurate numbers and maps them to specific attack scenarios. We plan to release our results in 2-3 months.