A Fetal-Movement Circuit Harvesting High-Energy Plasma During Fabrication, Concept, and Its Application to Self-Programming PUF

Abstract

This letter presents a concept of a circuit harvesting high-energy plasma and operating during its semiconductor fabrication process, namely, fetal-movement circuit (FMC). The plasma current collection antenna is designed to be a comb shape for area saving. This enables the FMC related circuits to be placed within a dicing street for suppressing its area penalty to be almost zero. A self-programming oxide-breakdown physically unclonable function (PUF) has been implemented as one of the FMC applications. The successful PUF programming operation during fabrication has been demonstrated.