Physical Unclonable Functions and Intellectual Property Protection Techniques

Abstract

On one hand, traditionally, secure systems rely on hardware to store the keys for cryptographic protocols. Such an approach is becoming increasingly insecure, due to hardware-intrinsic vulnerabilities. A physical unclonable function (PUF) is a security primitive that exploits inherent hardware properties to generate keys on the fly, instead of storing them. On the other hand, the integrated circuit (IC) design flow is globalized due to increase in design, fabrication, testing, and verification costs. While globalization has provided cost benefits and reduced the time-to-market, it has introduced several attacks such as piracy, malicious modifications, and counterfeiting. To thwart these attacks, researchers have developed techniques that modify the designs and include additional components into the design. Such techniques are collectively called intellectual property (IP) protection techniques. In this chapter, we describe two classes of hardware security techniques: PUFs and IP protection techniques.