PreLatPUF: Exploiting DRAM Latency Variations for Generating Robust Device Signatures

TL;DR

PreLatPUF leverages DRAM precharge latency variations to create a fast, robust, and non-destructive device signature method, significantly outperforming existing techniques in speed and reliability.

Contribution

This paper introduces PreLatPUF, a novel DRAM-based PUF that exploits precharge latency variations for rapid, reliable, and non-destructive device signatures.

Findings

PreLatPUF is approximately 1,192 times faster than existing methods.

It reliably reproduces keys under extreme operating conditions.

The technique is non-destructive and minimally disruptive.

Abstract

Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are potential security blocks to generate unique and more secure keys in low-cost cryptographic applications. Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) has been proposed as one of the promising candidates for generating robust keys. Unfortunately, the existing techniques of generating device signatures from DRAM is very slow, destructive (destroy the current data), and disruptive to system operation. In this paper, we propose \textit{precharge} latency-based PUF (PreLatPUF) that exploits DRAM \textit{precharge} latency variations to generate signatures. The proposed PreLatPUF is fast, robust, least disruptive, and non-destructive. The silicon results from commercially available $DDR3$ chips from different manufacturers show that the proposed key generation technique is at least $ \sim 1,192X$ faster than the existing approaches, while reliably reproducing the key in extreme operating conditions.