A PUF Based on a Transient Effect Ring Oscillator and Insensitive to Locking Phenomenon

This paper presents a new silicon physical unclonable function (PUF) based on a transient effect ring oscillator (TERO). The proposed PUF has state of the art PUF characteristics with a good ratio of PUF response variability to response length. Unlike RO-PUF, it is not sensitive to the locking phenomenon, which challenges the use of ring oscillators for the design of both PUF and TRNG. The novel architecture using differential structures guarantees high stability of the TERO-PUF. The area of the TERO-PUF is relatively high, but is still comparable with other PUF designs. However, since the same piece of hardware can be used for both PUF and random number generation, the proposed principle offers an interesting low area mixed solution.

[1]  T. Kacprzak,et al.  Analysis of oscillatory metastable operation of an RS flip-flop , 1988, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[2]  L. Reyneri,et al.  Oscillatory metastability in homogeneous and inhomogeneous flip-flops , 1990 .

[3]  Jorge Guajardo,et al.  FPGA Intrinsic PUFs and Their Use for IP Protection , 2007, CHES.

[4]  S. Devadas,et al.  Design and Implementation of PUF-Based "Unclonable" RFID ICs for Anti-Counterfeiting and Security Applications , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on RFID.

[5]  Jorge Guajardo,et al.  Extended abstract: The butterfly PUF protecting IP on every FPGA , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Workshop on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust.

[6]  Abhranil Maiti,et al.  Physical unclonable function and true random number generator: a compact and scalable implementation , 2009, GLSVLSI '09.

[7]  Patrick Schaumont,et al.  A large scale characterization of RO-PUF , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).

[8]  Akashi Satoh,et al.  Quantitative and Statistical Performance Evaluation of Arbiter Physical Unclonable Functions on FPGAs , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs.

[9]  Milos Drutarovský,et al.  New High Entropy Element for FPGA Based True Random Number Generators , 2010, CHES.

[10]  Nathalie Bochard,et al.  True-Randomness and Pseudo-Randomness in Ring Oscillator-Based True Random Number Generators , 2010, Int. J. Reconfigurable Comput..

[11]  Mitsugu Iwamoto,et al.  Uniqueness Enhancement of PUF Responses Based on the Locations of Random Outputting RS Latches , 2011, CHES.

[12]  Georg Sigl,et al.  Semi-invasive EM attack on FPGA RO PUFs and countermeasures , 2011 .

[13]  Stefan Katzenbeisser,et al.  PUFs: Myth, Fact or Busted? A Security Evaluation of Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) Cast in Silicon , 2012, CHES.

[14]  Bruno Robisson,et al.  Contactless Electromagnetic Active Attack on Ring Oscillator Based True Random Number Generator , 2012, COSADE.

[15]  Sylvain Guilley,et al.  An Easy-to-Design PUF Based on a Single Oscillator: The Loop PUF , 2012, 2012 15th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design.

[16]  Sedat Akleylek,et al.  Security requirements for cryptographic modules , 2013 .