sThing: A Novel Configurable Ring Oscillator Based PUF for Hardware-Assisted Security and Recycled IC Detection

Abstract

The ring oscillator (RO) is widely used to address different hardware security issues. For example, the RO-based physical unclonable function (PUF) generates a secure and reliable key for the cryptographic application, and the RO-based aging sensor is used for the efficient detection of recycled ICs. In this paper, a CMOS inverter with two voltage control signals is used to design a configurable RO (CRO). With its control signals, the proposed CRO can both accelerate and lower the impact of aging on the oscillation frequency. This vital feature of the proposed CRO makes it suitable for use in PUFs and RO-based sensors. The performance of both the proposed modified architecture, i.e., CRO PUF and CRO sensor, is evaluated in 90 nm CMOS technology. The aging tolerant feature of the proposed CRO enhances the reliability of CRO PUF. Similarly, the aging acceleration property of CRO improves the rate of detection of recycled ICs. Finally, both the proposed architectures are area and power-efficient compared to standard architectures.

Keywords

• Hardware-assisted security (HAS)
• physically unclonable function (PUF)
• configurable ring oscillator (CRO)
• nanoscale process variation (PV)
• IC aging
• recycled IC