[troglodynellc]

Back when I worked at TI we had a neat machine that used X-Rays to map and reverse competitor chips (mostly to discover they were duping ours). It would work down to just short of a 10nm resolution.

You'd need to use gamma spectrography to map out more modern chips. I'm sure someone's got the equipment somewhere; the chip manufacturers themselves must verify they got a good etch somehow.