Enabling SRAM-PUFs on Xilinx FPGAs

Abstract

Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) based on the evaluation of uninitialized SRAM are one of the most promising PUF candidates to date. However, transferring their concept to Xilinx FPGAs is not straightforward since all SRAM-based block memories in these FPGAs are automatically cleared on power-up, destroying the desired initial bits of information. In this work we therefore propose a novel strategy to convert block memories of 28nm Xilinx FPGAs into SRAM-PUFs by exploiting their recently introduced feature of power-gating and partial reconfiguration.