Highly Reliable, Feed-Forward and Multi-Arbiter based Physical Unclonable Function for IoT security
Nitish Kumar, Sneha Chaudhary, Kavindra Kandpal, Manish Goswami · 2024
As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, securing IoT-enabled devices has become crucial due to the risk of increased cyber-attacks. The cryptographic methods used traditionally are unsuitable for IoT nodes due to their limited resources. Physically Unclonable Functions offer a cost-effective solution by generating unique keys from the inherent random variations in integrated circuits through challenge-response pairs (CRPs). This paper introduces a novel PUF design based on feed-forward and multi-arbiter PUFs, it leverages process variations in arbiter circuits to produce unique CRPs, enhancing reliability by converting device delay variations into distinct digital outputs. Implementation using 180 nm CMOS technology show that the PUF achieved a uniformity of 48.09%, average bit-aliasing of 48%, inter-Hamming distance of 50%, and reliability of 97.14%. Each response bit consumes 0.68 mW of power, ensuring efficient performance across a wide temperature range from -40°C to 120°C, surpassing other arbiter-based PUF designs in efficiency.