Pure Digital Scalable Mixed Entropy Separation Structure for Physical Unclonable Function and True Random Number Generator

Abstract

This study presents a pure digital scalable mixed entropy separation structure for the physical unclonable function (PUF) and true random number generator (TRNG), which is implemented on Xilinx field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The mixed entropy separation structure in this study is to solve the problems of unstable output in the existing PUF structure and the poor scalability of the TRNG and PUF design. The proposed design has the following innovations: 1) concept of sensitive entropy and the corresponding processing method are proposed for the first time; 2) design does not need to modify the internal design of the entropy source, and it is suitable for most entropy source arrays; and 3) adjustable PUF bit width and TRNG throughput enhance the scalability of the architecture under different requirements. The structure is simulated and validated on two Xilinx FPGAs and tested under nominal working conditions. The results show that the 512-bit PUF entropy source after treatment is 92.7% more stable than the 1024-bit entropy source before treatment, the random number after treatment passes all types of randomness tests, and the minimum entropy is more than 0.8. Under various conditions within the ranges of 0 °C–80 °C and 0.8–1.2 V, the TRNG output remains stable after treatment; the maximum intra-Hamming distance of the treated PUF is 5.1028%, and the average intra-Hamming distance is 2.7065%.