MRAM PUF: A Novel Geometry Based Magnetic PUF With Integrated CMOS

This manuscript addresses a novel MRAM-based physically unclonable function (PUF). The PUF responses are generated using the unique energy-tilt, which is an outcome of the random geometric variations in the MRAM cells. We have verified relevant attributes of this PUF through extensive magnetic simulations and in-house fabrication results. Our fabricated PUF cells generate entropy as high as 0.99, which is comparable to most of its competitors. To our knowledge, the footprint of the PUF cells is also lower than the majority of silicon PUFs. Also, the authentication control algorithm for this PUF requires very low additional control-steps. We conclude our discussion of this novel PUF with a study of authentication overhead and protocols required by the PUF system in terms of area, power, and delay.