Citation: Chen, H.-C.; Irawan, B.;
Hsu, P.-Y.; Su, J.-S.; Lin, C.-W.;
Prayitno; Putra, K.T.; Damarjati, C.;
Weng, C.-E.; Liang, Y.-H.; et al.
An Implementation of Trust Chain
Framework with Hierarchical
Content Identifier Mechanism by
Using Blockchain Technology. Sensors
2022, 22, 4831. https://doi.org/
10.3390/s22134831
Academic Editor: Nikos Fotiou
Received: 25 May 2022
Accepted: 22 June 2022
Published: 26 June 2022
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Article
An Implementation of Trust Chain Framework with
Hierarchical Content Identifier Mechanism by Using
Blockchain Technology
Hsing-Chung Chen
1,2,
* , Bambang Irawan
1,3
, Pei-Yu Hsu
1
, Jhih-Sheng Su
1
, Chun-Wei (Jerry) Lin
4
,
Prayitno
1,5
, Karisma Trinanda Putra
6
, Cahya Damarjati
7
, Chien-Erh Weng
8,
* , Yao-Hsien Liang
1
and Pi-Hsien Chang
9
1
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Asia University, Taichung 413305, Taiwan;
bambang.irawan@esaunggul.ac.id (B.I.); hcliebe2019@gmail.com (P.-Y.H.);
108121019@live.asia.edu.tw (J.-S.S.); prayitno@polines.ac.id (P.); 108021072@live.asia.edu.tw (Y.-H.L.)
2
Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University,
Taichung 404327, Taiwan
3
Department of Computer Science, Esa Unggul University, West Jakarta 11510, Indonesia
4
Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Western Norway
University of Applied, 5063 Bergen, Norway; jerrylin@ieee.org
5
Department of Electrical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Semarang, Semarang 50194, Indonesia
6
Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Bantul 55183, Indonesia;
karisma@ft.umy.ac.id
7
Department of Information Technology, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Bantul 55183, Indonesia;
cahya.damarjati@umy.ac.id
8
Department of Telecommunication Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology,
Kaohsiung 81157, Taiwan
9
Information Management Center, Taichung City Government, Taichung 407610, Taiwan;
ps491@taichung.gov.tw
*
Correspondence: shin8409@ms6.hinet.net or cdma2000@asia.edu.tw (H.-C.C.); ceweng@nkust.edu.tw (C.-E.W.)
Abstract:
Advances in information technology (IT) and operation technology (OT) accelerate the
development of manufacturing systems (MS) consisting of integrated circuits (ICs), modules, and
systems, toward Industry 4.0. However, the existing MS does not support comprehensive identity
forensics for the whole system, limiting its ability to adapt to equipment authentication difficulties.
Furthermore, the development of trust imposed during their crosswise collaborations with suppliers
and other manufacturers in the supply chain is poorly maintained. In this paper, a trust chain
framework with a comprehensive identification mechanism is implemented for the designed MS
system, which is based and created on the private blockchain in conjunction with decentralized
database systems to boost the flexibility, traceability, and identification of the IC-module-system.
Practical implementations are developed using a functional prototype. First, the decentralized
application (DApp) and the smart contracts are proposed for constructing the new trust chain under
the proposed comprehensive identification mechanism by using blockchain technology. In addition,
the blockchain addresses of IC, module, and system are automatically registered to InterPlanetary
File System (IPFS), individually. In addition, their corresponding hierarchical CID (content identifier)
values are organized by using Merkle DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph), which is employed via the
hierarchical content identifier mechanism (HCIDM) proposed in this paper. Based on insights
obtained from this analysis, the trust chain based on HCIDM can be applied to any MS system, for
example, this trust chain could be used to prevent the counterfeit modules and ICs employed in
the monitoring system of a semiconductor factory environment. The evaluation results show that
the proposed scheme could work in practice under the much lower costs, compared to the public
blockchain, with a total cost of 0.002094 Ether. Finally, this research is developed an innovation trust
chain mechanism that could be provided the system-level security for any MS toward Industrial 4.0
in order to meet the requirements of both manufacturing innovation and product innovation in
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Sensors 2022, 22, 4831. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22134831 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
