TSV-based PUF circuit for 3DIC sensor nodes in IoT applications

Sensor nodes massively deployed in Internet of Things are subject to physical capture, hardware tampering, device cloning, and unauthorized device alteration. This paper presented a novel ring oscillator PUF (Physical Unclonable Function) circuit exploiting the process variation of both CMOS devices and TSVs (Through Silicon Vias) available on TSV-based 3D stacking sensor nodes, for secure data generation resistant to physical attacks. As far as we know from the literature, this is the first work on TSV-based 3D PUF circuits. Simulation results based on a 0.18-μm CMOS technology and a 5.2-μm via-last TSV technology show that the proposed 3D PUF circuit has stronger uniqueness and reproducibility in PUF behavior.