Asynchronous approach to ring oscillator for FPGA-based Physical Unclonable Function design

This paper describes a technique that exploits the process variation in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in order to generate varying frequencies using asynchronous ring oscillators. To study its feasibility, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are implemented on FPGAs for generating unique signatures based on different frequencies generated from oscillators. The variation in frequencies generated from identically laid-out oscillators across the device can generate unique signatures, which is used in device authentication and cryptographic applications.