University of Michigan

Kaiyuan Yang

David Theodore Blaauw

Dennis Sylvester

David Alan Fick

Dennis Michael Chen Sylvester

Yoonmyung Lee

Michael B Henry

Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) cells are described, suitable for CMOS technology, where each PUF cell is based upon a two-transistor amplifier design. A PUF cell includes a voltage generator followed by one or more amplifier stages. Also described is a method and apparatus for determining a dark bit mask for an array of PUF cells based on the two-transistor amplifier design.

Physically unclonable function design

A true random number generator comprises a ring oscillator which is triggered to start oscillating in a first mode of oscillation at an oscillation start time. The first mode of oscillation will eventually collapse to a second mode of oscillation dependent on thermal noise. A collapse time from the oscillation start time to the time at which the oscillator collapses to the second mode is measured, and this can be used to determine a random number. The TRNG can be synthesized entirely using standard digital techniques and is able to provide high randomness, good throughput and energy efficiency.

True random number generator

Growing community of inventors

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Kaiyuan Yang