Intrinsic PUF Instance on Non-Volatile NAND Flash Memory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the intrinsic physical unclonable function (PUF) properties of non-volatile NAND flash memory, revealing how intra-page disturbances can be exploited for security purposes in embedded systems.

Contribution

It presents an experimental analysis of disturbance phenomena in NAND flash memory, highlighting their potential use as intrinsic PUFs for hardware security.

Findings

Intra-page disturbance is easier to produce than inter-page disturbance.

Adjacent pages are paired and disturbances occur only within pairs.

Higher page numbers make it more difficult to observe initial bit flips.

Abstract

Embedded systems or micro controller based modules have become increasingly prevalent in our daily lives. However, the security of embedded devices as well as the authenticity of hardware has become an increasing concern within the growing Internet of Things (IoT) space. In this paper we setup an experiment environment where SLC flash program disturbance is observed. We discovered that intra-page disturbance is easier to be produced than inter-page disturbance. We also observed that adjacent pages are paired in (2n, 2n+1) manner, and disturbance only occurs within a pair. Lastly, we found that as page number increases from 0 to 63, it becomes more difficult to observe the first bit flip within a page, and thus more difficult to achieve the disturbance stable state.