Reliability Analysis of FinFET-Based SRAM PUFs for 16nm, 14nm, and 7nm Technology Nodes

Abstract

SRAM Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are among other things today commercially used for secure primitives such as key generation and authentication. The quality of the PUFs and hence the security primitives, depends on intrinsic variations which are technology dependent. Therefore, to sustain the commercial usage of PUFs for cutting-edge technologies, it is important to properly model and evaluate their reliability. In this work, we evaluate the SRAM PUF reliability using within class Hamming distance (WCHD) for 16nm, 14nm, and 7nm using simulations and silicon validation for both low-power and high-performance designs. The results show that our simulation models and expectations match with the silicon measurements. From the experiments, we conclude the following: (1) SRAM PUF is reliable in advanced FinFET technology nodes, i.e., the noise is low in 16nm, 14nm, and 7nm, (2) temperature variations have a marginal impact on the reliability, and (3) both low-power and high-performance SRAMs can be used as a PUF without excessive need of error correcting codes (ECCs).