A memristor fingerprinting and characterisation methodology for hardware security.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Engineering

Background:

• Modern integrated circuit (IC) supply chains are complex, involving numerous manufacturers and steps.
• Ensuring chip quality and legitimate sourcing is critical for many applications.
• Existing identification methods are vulnerable to cloning, compromising supply chain integrity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a new methodology for uniquely identifying ICs.
• To leverage post-CMOS memristor devices for creating a secure hardware fingerprint.
• To enhance IC supply chain tracking and combat counterfeit devices.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing the unique and variable current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of memristor devices.
• Developing a fingerprinting technique applicable across diverse memristor technologies.
• Ensuring fingerprint identifiability over time, even with non-ideal cell retention.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a methodology for generating a unique IC fingerprint using memristors.
• The proposed method is applicable to various memristor technologies.
• Successfully identified individual cells within a test set using the memristor fingerprint.

Conclusions:

• Memristor-based fingerprints offer a robust solution for unique IC identification.
• The approach minimizes on-chip hardware requirements, reducing cost and improving auditability.
• This method strengthens IC supply chain security and quality assurance against counterfeiting.