The Silicon Trojan

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/the-silicon-trojan.
A supply chain manager discovers a shipment of defense-grade chips that perform too well. A sci-fi story about hardware trojans, lithography, and corp sabotage.
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When a shipment of 10,000 microcontrollers arrived for our drone guidance project, I pulled one for a routine stress test. The results were impossible: the chip ran 20% faster than the spec sheet allowed. I realized too late that these weren't counterfeits—they were advanced hardware trojans designed to take control, and my boss had already signed the manifest.