Paper 2015/623

Design, Evaluation and Optimization of Physical Unclonable Functions based on Transient Effect Ring Oscillators

Abdelkarim Cherkaoui, Lilian Bossuet and Cédric Marchand

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical study and a full overview of the design, evaluation and optimization of a PUF based on transient element ring oscillators (TERO-PUF). We show how, by following some simple design rules and strategies, designers can build and optimize a TERO-PUF with state of the art PUF characteristics in a standard CMOS technology. To this end, we analyzed the uniqueness, steadiness and randomness of responses generated from 30 test chips in a CMOS 350nm process in nominal and corner voltage and temperature conditions. Response generation schemes are proposed and discussed to optimize the PUF performances and reduce its area without noticeable loss in its output quality. In particular, we show that the large area of the basic blocks in the TERO-PUF is balanced by the high level of entropy extracted in each basic block. Guidelines are provided to balance reliability and randomness of the responses and the design area.

Note: This is a paper which has been re-submitted to IEEE-TIFS after beeing accepted with major revisions.