
Without getting into the *really* *thorny* questions about reverse
engineering and all of that, let me just point out that there already
exist gate arrays and suchlike that have what's known as a security fuse
which can be programmed after you've verified all other programming --
this makes it impossible to read out the programming of the device
(again, ignoring the reverse engineering questions).  Speaking from
experience here: I had to completely reinvent one of my designs some
six or seven years ago when the disk file was zapped, the backups were
all bad, and the devices were unreadable because of the security fuses.
Made me appreciate the value of printouts.  ;-)

So on this point at least there's not so much worry.

But whether or not we can get the chips made reliably and securely is
really secondary to the question of whether use of the chip is itself
likely to be secure, methinks.