Understanding sources of variations in flash memory for physical unclonable functions

Xu, Sarah Q.; Yu, Wancong; Suh, G. Edward; Kan, Edwin C.

doi:10.1109/imw.2014.6849385

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Process variations are intrinsic, naturally occurring sources of entropy created in the fabrication process of ICs. Process variations are exploited for various hardware security primitives due to their uncontrollable but reproducible randomness [44]. They are also common in flash memories and mainly come from random dopant fluctuations (RDF).…”

Section: Sources Of Process Variation In Flash Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are also common in flash memories and mainly come from random dopant fluctuations (RDF). The RDF fluctuations can be induced by traditional flash programming commands that are standardized in the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) [44]. This leads to more flexible flash memory-based hardware security primitive solutions that can be introduced through a variety of implementations such as Read Disturb, Program Disturb, Program/Erase Interrupt, Program/Erase Latency, and Random Telegraph Noise (RTN).…”

Section: Sources Of Process Variation In Flash Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This induces bit flips from the logical "one" to the "zero" states that disturb the original contents in those cells. As flash density increases, this effect is intensified as the memory is scaled down to smaller sizes [44]. Impact: As a source of process variation, read disturb can be implemented through a standard interface common to all flash devices.…”

Section: Read Disturbmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

et al. 2021

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Over the last two decades, hardware security has gained increasing attention in academia and industry. Flash memory has been given a spotlight in recent years, with the question of whether or not it can prove useful in a security role. Because of inherent process variation in the characteristics of flash memory modules, they can provide a unique fingerprint for a device and have thus been proposed as locations for hardware security primitives. These primitives include physical unclonable functions (PUFs), true random number generators (TRNGs), and integrated circuit (IC) counterfeit detection. In this paper, we evaluate the efficacy of flash memory-based security primitives and categorize them based on the process variations they exploit, as well as other features. We also compare and evaluate flash-based security primitives in order to identify drawbacks and essential design considerations. Finally, we describe new directions, challenges of research, and possible security vulnerabilities for flash-based security primitives that we believe would benefit from further exploration.

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Section: Sources Of Process Variation In Flash Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sources Of Process Variation In Flash Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Read Disturbmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

et al. 2021

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“…Unlike previous methods, PUFs are less vulnerable to attacks, and also require no additional manufacturing steps. A variety of different types of PUFs has been explored recently, including Arbiter PUF, ringoscillator (RO)-PUF, SRAM PUF, Latch PUF, and many more [2,3,18,19,[21][22][23]43]. This paper explores utilizing the popular SRAM PUF for identification and cryptographic key generation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic Correlation and Cell Neighborhood Analysis of SRAM PUF for Robust and Unique Key Generation

et al. 2017

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A physical unclonable function (PUF) is a structure that produces a unique response, with an issued challenge (input), which can be used as an identifier or a cryptographic key. SRAM PUFs create unique responses upon power up as certain SRAM cells output a "1" or "0" with high probability due to uncontrollable process variations. A current challenge in SRAM PUFs is their sensitivity to temperature and voltage variations as well as aging. It is always challenging to make SRAM PUFs reliable and unique with algorithms that isolate stable and uncorrelated bits quickly with minimal testing (enrollment). In this paper, we explore the selection of stable and uncorrelated bits through enrollment under different conditions (temperature and voltage) and also by exploiting previously undiscovered interactions between neighboring SRAM cells. We propose University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA neighbor influenced cell selection algorithm (NICSA) with the help of metrics that analyze the impact of each neighboring cell and each enrollment condition. The proposed NICSA helps to identify the "best" cells and conditions for stable bit selection. Besides reliability, SRAM PUF can be less unique due to systematic correlation among chips. We study the systematic correlation between SRAMs power-up values to find the uncorrelated cells among chips for better uniqueness. We have analyzed data from 5 ISSI, 3 IDT, and 3 Cypress SRAMs and our metrics identify the best neighborhood size (16 stable neighbors) and best enrollment condition pair high temperature, high voltage, and low temperature for NICSA.

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“…Different PUF realizations have been reported in literature over the past decade. Silicon (CMOS) PUFs include ring oscillator based PUF (RO-PUF), Arbiter based PUF, SRAM-based PUF, Sense-amplifier based PUF, Butterfly PUF, Flash PUF, etc., [3]- [13], [15], [16]. Different types of PUFs exploit different physical entities, including leakage, delay, start-up characteristics, among others, to provide randomness in their outputs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memristor PUF—A Security Primitive: Theory and Experiment

Mazady

Rahman

Forte

et al. 2015

IEEE J. Emerg. Sel. Topics Circuits Syst.

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Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) have emerged as a promising hardware security primitive, but existing CMOS PUFs suffer from issues related to reliability and susceptibility to modeling attacks. Memristors, leveraging nanotechnology fabrication process and highly nonlinear behavior, pose as an interesting alternative. In this paper, we report the first demonstration of memristor based PUFs. The six memristors we fabricated show a 50% uncertainty of PUF response and high reliability upon repeated interrogation. A physics based circuit model of memristors was also implemented to accurately determine the simulation time required for randomly selected polyominoes from a 3-D array of memristors. The proposed model provides higher degree of complexity and results in seven orders of increase in simulation time for an attacker than that reported by Rajendran et al., 2012.Index Terms-Circuit model, hardware security, memristors, physical unclonable functions.

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Understanding sources of variations in flash memory for physical unclonable functions

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

Systematic Correlation and Cell Neighborhood Analysis of SRAM PUF for Robust and Unique Key Generation

Memristor PUF—A Security Primitive: Theory and Experiment

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Understanding sources of variations in flash memory for physical unclonable functions

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

Flash-Based Security Primitives: Evolution, Challenges and Future Directions

Systematic Correlation and Cell Neighborhood Analysis of SRAM PUF for Robust and Unique Key Generation

Memristor PUF&#x2014;A Security Primitive: Theory and Experiment

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Memristor PUF—A Security Primitive: Theory and Experiment