Selected Bit-Line Current PUF: Implementation of Hardware Security Primitive Based on a Memristor Crossbar Array

Dayoung Kim,Wookyung Sun,Jungwon Lee,Yunyeong Choi,Hyungsoon Shin,Tae-Hyeon Kim,Hyungjin Kim,Byung-Gook Park,Geun Ho Lee

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3108534

Abstract

In this paper, a physical unclonable function (PUF), a type of hardware security device, is proposed to overcome the limitations of existing security schemes. A $32\times 32$ crossbar array using TiOx/Al2O3- based memristors was fabricated, and electrical characteristics including its set voltage distribution were analyzed. The memristor switching characteristics model is described in a simplified space-charge-limited current (SCLC) regime. Based on this I-V model, selected bit-line current PUFs (SBC-PUFs) were designed with $32\times 32$ , $64\times 64$ , and $128\times 128$ crossbar arrays. The entropy source of these PUFs is the set voltage deviation in the fabricated memristors. Due to these characteristics, the SBC-PUF can exploit the broad resistance distribution near the switching region, including the internal resistance distributions of the high resistance state (HRS) and low resistance state (LRS). The SBC-PUF performance was evaluated for randomness/uniformity, correctness/reliability, and uniqueness by calculating the Hamming weight and intra/inter Hamming distance of challenge-response pairs (CRPs). The designed structure demonstrates high-security performance due to the high value of these indicators and the large number of CRPs. Furthermore, the devised PUF has a higher prediction error rate than arbiter PUF in machine learning attacks. This study verified that the SBC-PUF using the memristor of the crossbar array structure is safe enough to be used for hardware security.

Highlights

As more electronic devices and internet technologies are used in everyday life, the threat of cyber-attacks has increased [1]
If the K challenge bit for bit line selection is added and used separately, the number of challenge-response pairs (CRPs) can be increased to 2N× (K/2)2. 2N is calculated from the number of cases of all word lines that can be selected, K/2 is calculated from the number of cases of one bit lines that can be selected in each group, and the squaring operation is added because there are two groups in the SBC-physical unclonable function (PUF)
We describe and compare the indicators included in each performance evaluation in detail and write about the performance evaluation results for 64×64 and 128×128 selected bit-line current PUFs (SBCPUFs) performed in each method

Summary

INTRODUCTION

As more electronic devices and internet technologies are used in everyday life, the threat of cyber-attacks has increased [1]. CMOS-based PUFs have a relatively large area and high power consumption [12]. They are vulnerable to modeling attacks based on machine learning because of their linearity [13]. Next-generation PUFs fabricated from phase change memory [14], magnetic random access memory [15], and memristor [16] nanoelectronic devices are being developed. Most existing memristor-based PUFs mainly use two entropy sources: (1) resistance distribution within a single state [17], [18], [19] and (2) random distribution of two resistance states determined by the write time variation [16].

MEMRISTOR DEVICE AND MODEL

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE AGAINST MACHINE LEARNING ATTACK

CONCLUSION