Total Ionizing Dose Effects on the Power-Up State of Static Random-Access Memory

Surendranathan, Umeshwarnath; Wilson, H. H.; Wasiolek, Maryla; Hattar, Khalid Mikhiel; Milenkovic, Aleksandar; Ray, Biswajit

doi:10.1109/tns.2023.3236625

Cited by 8 publications

References 23 publications

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Hardware assurance with silicon photonic physical unclonable functions

Mahdian,

Taheri,

Rahbardar Mojaver

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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In the modern landscape of optical communication networks, ensuring robust security is increasingly critical, particularly for applications requiring seamless integration and minimal attack surfaces. Photonic Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) leverage the response from the photonic devices that are prone to inherent physical variations to generate unique and unpredictable signature identifiers which are then utilized by an authentication system for identification or encryption purposes. These photonic PUFs can be cohesively integrated into systems that use optical communication, whereas using electronic PUFs would introduce additional vulnerabilities due to the need for signal-domain conversions between optical and electronic signals. In this paper, we present the design, fabrication, and experimental evaluation of advanced silicon-photonic-based PUFs utilizing Contra-Directional Coupler (CDC) structures. These structures offer a complex design space and are intrinsically sensitive to fabrication-process variations, making them ideal for creating unique and secure responses. We introduce several innovative design enhancements, including randomized corrugation functions, perforated designs, and ring-assisted CDCs, to increase the complexity and unpredictability of the CDC response. Measurement results from the fabricated CDCs demonstrate their capability to achieve an average Hamming distance threshold of over 0.2, effectively distinguishing between legitimate devices and their copies. We rigorously tested these fabricated designs against three different machine-learning-based attack scenarios. The results showed a Hamming distance of over 0.4 with a standard deviation of less than 0.01 at a quantization level of three, using 10,000 samples of challenge-response pairs. These findings underscore the potential of silicon photonic PUFs in enhancing security for optical communication systems of different scales. The integration of such photonic PUFs offers robust and reliable security solutions for applications where traditional electronic methods introduce additional attack surfaces and fail to provide adequate protection.

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Hardware assurance with silicon photonic physical unclonable functions

Mahdian,

Taheri,

Rahbardar Mojaver

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Heavy ion-induced microdose effects on the reliability of planar and FinFET-based SRAM physical unclonable functions

Shao,

Song,

et al. 2024

Applied Physics Letters

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The static random-access memory (SRAM) physical unclonable function (PUF) uses the power-up states of stored values to derive the identification code. Its lightweight circuit design makes it suitable for power-sensitive satellites. However, the SRAM PUF is significantly affected by high-energy particles and cosmic rays in space, which causes incorrect output of identity authentication codes and further leading to a degradation in reliability. Recently, the main research works are concerned about the impact of cosmic rays induced total ionizing dose effects on the SRAM PUF, and few reports discuss the high-energy particles induced single event effects on the SRAM PUF. This paper presents the reliability results of planar and FinFET-based SRAM PUFs after high-energy heavy ion experiments. Experimental results indicate that 3%–10% of the SRAM PUF bits change from their original power-on states, which demonstrate that ion-induced microdose effects degrade the reliability of SRAM PUFs. In addition, the three-dimensional technology computer-aided design simulation tool is used to analyze the physical mechanisms of the experimental phenomena. Simulation results show that the heavy ion-induced microdose effect ionizes and produces trapped charges at the silicon/insulation interface, which causes a slight change in transistor leakage current or a slight drift in threshold voltage. The physical mechanisms lead to an off-state current mismatch in the SRAM cell and finally affect the stored values after power-on.

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