Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are frequently exploited for security purposes. In particular, they are adopted to generate unique authentication passwords and cryptographic keys, with no need to store any secret information in non-volatile memories that can be easily attacked. In this paper, w...

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Main Authors: Marco Grossi, Martin Omana, Cecilia Metra, Andrea Acquaviva
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10942602/
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author Marco Grossi
Martin Omana
Cecilia Metra
Andrea Acquaviva
author_facet Marco Grossi
Martin Omana
Cecilia Metra
Andrea Acquaviva
author_sort Marco Grossi
collection DOAJ
description Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are frequently exploited for security purposes. In particular, they are adopted to generate unique authentication passwords and cryptographic keys, with no need to store any secret information in non-volatile memories that can be easily attacked. In this paper, we present a novel PUF based structure, that can be implemented at low costs in microcontrollers and FPGAs, by exploiting the circuitry that is already present in their General Purpose Input-Output (GPIO) interface. The proposed PUF based scheme has been implemented on five different FPGA devices, in order to experimentally verify their correct operation under various realistic operating conditions. We will show that our proposed PUF based structure features a good uniqueness (of the 49.75%), a uniformity close to the ideal value of the 50%, an average steadiness of the 99.33%, and a maximum reliability of the 99.61%, for a temperature ranging from 5°C to 65°C.
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issn 2169-3536
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
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series IEEE Access
spelling doaj-art-08c8a7dcbe424d33b519cf5c93e2ad0c2025-08-20T03:07:28ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113559705598310.1109/ACCESS.2025.355543810942602Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate ArraysMarco Grossi0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1316-9035Martin Omana1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-5365Cecilia Metra2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1408-5725Andrea Acquaviva3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7323-759XDepartment of Electrical Energy and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” (DEI), University of Bologna, Bologna, ItalyDepartment of Electrical Energy and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” (DEI), University of Bologna, Bologna, ItalyDepartment of Electrical Energy and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” (DEI), University of Bologna, Bologna, ItalyDepartment of Electrical Energy and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” (DEI), University of Bologna, Bologna, ItalyPhysical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are frequently exploited for security purposes. In particular, they are adopted to generate unique authentication passwords and cryptographic keys, with no need to store any secret information in non-volatile memories that can be easily attacked. In this paper, we present a novel PUF based structure, that can be implemented at low costs in microcontrollers and FPGAs, by exploiting the circuitry that is already present in their General Purpose Input-Output (GPIO) interface. The proposed PUF based scheme has been implemented on five different FPGA devices, in order to experimentally verify their correct operation under various realistic operating conditions. We will show that our proposed PUF based structure features a good uniqueness (of the 49.75%), a uniformity close to the ideal value of the 50%, an average steadiness of the 99.33%, and a maximum reliability of the 99.61%, for a temperature ranging from 5°C to 65°C.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10942602/Physical unclonable functionsInternet of ThingsmicrocontrollerFPGAsecurity
spellingShingle Marco Grossi
Martin Omana
Cecilia Metra
Andrea Acquaviva
Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
IEEE Access
Physical unclonable functions
Internet of Things
microcontroller
FPGA
security
title Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
title_full Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
title_fullStr Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
title_full_unstemmed Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
title_short Novel Physical Unclonable Function Implementation for Microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays
title_sort novel physical unclonable function implementation for microcontrollers and field programmable gate arrays
topic Physical unclonable functions
Internet of Things
microcontroller
FPGA
security
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10942602/
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AT martinomana novelphysicalunclonablefunctionimplementationformicrocontrollersandfieldprogrammablegatearrays
AT ceciliametra novelphysicalunclonablefunctionimplementationformicrocontrollersandfieldprogrammablegatearrays
AT andreaacquaviva novelphysicalunclonablefunctionimplementationformicrocontrollersandfieldprogrammablegatearrays