CNT-PUFs: Highly Robust and Heat-Tolerant Carbon-Nanotube-Based Physical Unclonable Functions

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Science

Background:

• Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are crucial for hardware security.
• Existing PUF technologies face challenges with stability and robustness.
• Novel materials are needed to enhance PUF performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize a novel PUF based on single-walled Carbon NanoTubes (CNTs).
• To evaluate the robustness and temperature stability of CNT-based PUFs.
• To demonstrate the potential of CNTs as hardware security primitives.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of PUFs using stochastic assembly of single-walled CNTs.
• Wafer-level integration of CNT-based PUF devices.
• Performance testing across a temperature range (23 °C to 120 °C).
• Analysis of device stability using Hamming distance and Arrhenius plots.

Main Results:

• Achieved exceptional robustness with intra-device Hamming distance below 0.01.
• Demonstrated excellent thermal tolerance up to 120 °C with low activation energies (<40 meV).
• Observed a very low number of unstable bits, enabling simplified error correction.
• Validated the efficiency of CNT-based devices as hardware security primitives.

Conclusions:

• Single-walled CNTs offer a highly robust and unique platform for PUF development.
• The demonstrated thermal stability and low error rates make CNT-PUFs suitable for demanding security applications.
• This work highlights the potential of nanomaterials in advancing hardware security solutions.