A 100% Stable Sense-Amplifier-Based Physically Unclonable Function With Individually Embedded Non-Volatile Memory

In this paper is presented a sense-amplifier-based physically unclonable function (PUF) with individually embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) that offers 100% stable random bits. The proposed eNVM, which stores the initially generated random key, biases the sense-amplifier to reproduce always the same key as the initial value through a feedback path. In order to verify the performance of the proposed architecture, a 256-bit PUF with a core area of 0.160 mm
²
was implemented in a 180 nm standard CMOS process. The measurement results of the implemented PUF show an intra-chip Hamming Distance (HD) of 0 (100% stability) and inter-chip HD of 0.5047.