Inkjet-Printed BaTiO₃ Nanoparticle-Embedded Capacitor Array for Physical Unclonable Function

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Microelectronics Engineering
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Nanoparticle (NP)-based physical unclonable functions (PUFs) offer nanoscale randomness as an alternative to microfabrication-based PUFs.
• Existing NP-based optical PUFs are limited by bulky readout systems incompatible with microelectronics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an electrically readable NP-based PUF technology integrated into microelectronics.
• To utilize the inherent physical randomness of nanoparticles for secure digital fingerprinting.

Main Methods:

• Developed nanoparticle-based capacitor PUF (CAP-PUF) technology using high-k BaTiO3 NPs.
• Employed inkjet printing micropatterning for fabricating NP-embedded CAP-PUF arrays.
• Optimized inkjet-printing parameters to enhance the natural randomness of NP micropatterns.

Main Results:

• Achieved high security performance with an inter-Hamming distance of 0.52 and intra-Hamming distance of 0.064.
• Demonstrated uniformity of 0.44 and entropy of 0.989 for the BaTiO3 NP-embedded CAP-PUF array.
• Confirmed the potential for unique digital fingerprints based on nanoscale randomness.

Conclusions:

• High-k NP inkjet-printing-based CAP-PUFs offer a viable solution for secure, microelectronics-integrated digital fingerprints.
• The developed technology leverages intrinsic nanoscale randomness for robust security applications.
• This approach overcomes limitations of optical PUFs by enabling electrical readout.