Reconfigurable physical unclonable cryptographic primitives based on current-induced nanomagnets switching

作     者：Shuai ZHANG Jian ZHANG Shihao LI Yaoyuan WANG Zhenjiang CHEN Jeongmin HONG Long YOU Shuai ZHANG;Jian ZHANG;Shihao LI;Yaoyuan WANG;Zhenjiang CHEN;Jeongmin HONG;Long YOU

作者机构：Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic InformationHuazhong University of Science and Technology 

出 版 物：《Science China(Information Sciences)》 (中国科学:信息科学(英文版))

年 卷 期：2022年第65卷第2期

页      面：188-196页

核心收录：

学科分类：0808[工学-电气工程] 08[工学] 0839[工学-网络空间安全] 0812[工学-计算机科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 

基　　金：funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61674062, 61904060, 61821003) in part by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. HUST: 2018KFYXKJC019) in part by Research Project of Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau (Grant No. 2019010701011394) 

主　　题：reconfigurable physical unclonable function spin-orbit torque cryptographic primitive spintronics nanomagnet 

摘      要：Hardware security primitives that preserve secrets are playing a crucial role in the Internet-ofThings(Io T) era. Existing physical unclonable function(PUF) instantiations, exploiting static randomness,generate challenge-response pairings(CRPs) to produce unique security keys that can be used to authenticate devices linked to the Io T. Reconfigurable PUFs(RPUFs) with dynamically refreshable CRPs can enhance the security and robustness of conventional PUFs. The in-plane current-driven perpendicular polarized nanomagnet switching via spin-orbit torque(SOT) possesses great potential for application to memory and logic, as the write-current path is separate from the read-current path, which naturally resolves the write-read interference. However, the stochastic switching of perpendicular magnetization, without an additional symmetry-breaking field, would significantly hinder the technological viability of commercial implementations. Here, we report an initialization-free physical RPUF implemented by SOT-induced stochastic switching of perpendicularly magnetized Ta/Co Fe B/Mg O nanodevices. Using a 15×15 nanomagnet array, we experimentally demonstrate a security primitive that offers a near-ideal 50% uniqueness over 100 reconfiguration cycles, as well as a low correlation coefficient between every two reconfiguration cycles. Our results show that current-induced nanomagnets switching paves the way for developing highly reliable and energy-efficient reconfigurable cryptographic primitives with a smaller footprint.