A study on sensitivity to an embedded nanostructure in a micrometer-channel-length Si MOSFET

Abstract

Nano-artifact metrics (NAM) is an information security technology that uses a nano-scale random structure as a unique identifier, and is expected to provide secure authentication in the Internet of Things era. For electrical discrimination of the two-dimensional random nanostructure in terms of NAM, we investigated the sensitivity to the nanostructure in a Si MOSFET with micrometer channel length in a simulation and experiment. The device simulation showed that the sensitivity was increased by decreasing the channel length and increasing the height of the nano-convex structures. It also showed that a device with a 10 μm channel length could detect a nano-convex. On the other hand, the fabricated Si MOSFET with a 50 nm height nano-convex showed lower nanostructure sensitivity than that expected in the simulation. A detailed analysis indicated that the degradation of the sensitivity was attributed to fabrication process issues, including the unintentional reduction of the convex size and high source and drain resistance.