Reid Burke

Ben Nassi, Etay Iluz, Ofek Vayner, Or Cohen, Dudi Nassi, Boris Zadov, and Yuval Elovici:

We were able to recover secret keys from non-compromised devices using video footage of their power LED obtained by commercial video cameras.

In this paper, we present video-based cryptanalysis, a new method used to recover secret keys from a device by analyzing video footage of a device’s power LED. We show that cryptographic computations performed by the CPU change the power consumption of the device which affects the brightness of the device’s power LED.

This is done by obtaining video footage of a device’s power LED (in which the frame is filled with the power LED) and exploiting the video camera’s rolling shutter to increase the sampling rate by three orders of magnitude from the FPS rate (60 measurements per second) to the rolling shutter speed (60K measurements per second in the iPhone 13 Pro Max).

Via Sam Bent. They recovered a 256-bit ECDSA key from a smart card reader 16 meters away, through a window, with a hijacked security camera — no malware, no contact. _SiCk pointed at an older paper in the same neighborhood: PowerHammer (2018), malware that leaks data off an air-gapped machine by modulating CPU load onto the power line.

Via X

Researchers pulled a 256-bit encryption key out of a device by filming its power LED.

The status light on a smart card reader flickers in sync with the chip's power draw, and that power draw leaks the key. They recovered a full ECDSA key from 16 meters away, through a window,…

— Sam Bent (@DoingFedTime) August 17, 2026

That's bad, this is worse, and older.https://t.co/qReH1rIi69

— _SiCk (@encrypted_past) August 18, 2026

Andrew Côté:

So then why would Terafab need a Free Electron Laser, and why wouldn’t they just use what ASML does currently, laser-tin droplet ablation? To answer this we should start at the beginning: the fundamental physics of semiconductor photolithography.

Laser-tin droplet ablation has low efficiency, requires one light source per scanner, and yield quality is limited by available photon power:

The last one is a real doozy – as an example, for Intel chips i5, i7 and i9 all come off the same silicon wafers using the same masks, the difference is in the statistical error rates induced by limited or irregular photon power during the masking process.

EUV light contributes ~40% of overall fab costs. Using an alternative light source can reduce the EUV cost by 50% which would contribute to a 20% reduction in overall fab costs. And yields would be much better.

Apple:

Apple today announced a new multiyear commitment with Broadcom to design and produce custom silicon components and cutting-edge wireless connectivity technologies for a wide range of Apple products. The new agreement, expected to exceed $30 billion, will lead to the production of more than 15 billion U.S.-made chips and support hundreds of American jobs.

Apple has been working with the administration and businesses across the U.S. to help create an end-to-end silicon supply chain in America, and today’s announcement advances those efforts.

Broadcom will produce advanced radio frequency components — including FBAR filters — and advanced wireless connectivity technologies at the Fort Collins facility.

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From Thin-film bulk acoustic resonator on Grokipedia:

Thin-film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) are widely employed in radio frequency filters and duplexers due to their ability to provide high-quality factor operation, low insertion loss, and compact size, making them essential components in wireless communication front-ends.

Duplexers, which simultaneously support transmit and receive paths while isolating them, represent a primary application of FBAR technology, particularly in handset antennas operating at frequencies from 900 MHz to over 5 GHz.