Survey of emerging technology based physical unclonable funtions

Abstract

Authentication of electronic devices has become critical. Hardware authentication is one way to enhance security of a chip. Along with software, it makes it harder for an intruder to access any computer, smart-phone, or other devices without authorization. One way of authenticating a device through hardware is to use the fabrication anomalies, which are random and unclonable. This mechanism is called a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF). PUFs are easy to evaluate but hard to predict. PUF is a concept that gained popularity since the past decade, when researchers started taking advantage of the randomness of electrical signals in order to build a unique authentication block. This survey will show the state-of-the-art devices that are currently investigated as PUFs. The different technologies are compared by taking into account reproducibility, uniqueness, randomness, area, scalability, and compatibility with CMOS. Emphasis is put on technologies that are emerging and gaining commercial interest. Through comparisons, we will show their applicability to different environments.