The bidirectional polyomino partitioned PPUF as a hardware security primitive

Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) have demonstrated great potential as fast and robust hardware security primitives. Public physical unclonable functions (PPUFs) have removed the main conceptual limitations of PUFs by enabling the creation of public key protocols. Traditional methods of constructing PPUFs leverage intrinsic process variation in submicron integrated circuits. However, these implementations impose high power usage and require long simulation times, producing high latency protocols. We propose to use next generation CMOS-compatible technologies, such as memristors and nanowires, whose components exhibit non-linear circuit characteristics, for the creation of PPUFs. We utilize the bidirectional nature of these components and introduce a novel architecture of PPUF polyomino partitioning. Furthermore, we present new security protocols that authenticate orders of magnitude faster than their CMOS-based PPUF counterparts. We simulate the design and demonstrate its resilience to a host of attacks using SPICE circuit simulation.