In this paper, we demonstrate how the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) becomes a powerful tool for Side Channel Analysis (SCA) and Hardware Reverse Engineering. We locate the AES hardware circuit of a XMEGA microprocessor with Capacitive-Coupled Voltage Contrast (CCVC) images and use them in a powerful Voltage Contrast Side Channel Analysis (VCSCA). This enables an attacker to locate AES bit-wires in the top metal-layer and thus, to recover valuable netlist information. An attacker gets a valuable entry-point to look for weaknesses or Intellectual Property (IP) in the AES circuit. Additionally we show the great potential of the VCSCA in a non-invasive Side Channel Analysis for Reverse Engineering (SCARE) approach. Finally, we recover the full key of the AES hardware-engine in a practical template-based VCSCA and a no-plaintext, no-ciphertext and no-key Simple Side Channel Analysis (SSCA). We show that future VCSCA attacks present a big hardware security-risk that IC vendors need to consider. Keywords: Side channel analysis• SCA • hw reverse engineering • Voltage contrast • AES • Full key recovery • Scare

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