Exploiting PUF Models for Error Free Response Generation
This addresses the need for reliable PUF-based cryptographic applications like key exchange and bit commitment, offering a practical solution for hardware security, though it is incremental as it builds on existing PUF models.
The paper tackles the problem of generating error-free responses from Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) without expensive on-chip error correction, by exploiting a statistical model to select challenges that yield error-free responses across wide operating conditions, achieving this under worst-case error rates up to 16.68%.
Physical unclonable functions (PUF) extract secrets from randomness inherent in manufacturing processes. PUFs are utilized for basic cryptographic tasks such as authentication and key generation, and more recently, to realize key exchange and bit commitment requiring a large number of error free responses from a strong PUF. We propose an approach to eliminate the need to implement expensive on-chip error correction logic implementation and the associated helper data storage to reconcile naturally noisy PUF responses. In particular, we exploit a statistical model of an Arbiter PUF (APUF) constructed under the nominal operating condition during the challenge response enrollment phase by a trusted party to judiciously select challenges that yield error-free responses even across a wide operating conditions, specifically, a $ \pm 20\% $ supply voltage variation and a $ 40^{\crc} $ temperature variation. We validate our approach using measurements from two APUF datasets. Experimental results indicate that large number of error-free responses can be generated on demand under worst-case when PUF response error rate is up to 16.68\%.