Generating physical unclonable function data from a transistor of a semiconductor device

Abstract

A physical unclonable function (PUF) can be implemented on a transistor of an integrated circuit device to generate PUF data. A potential difference is supplied across a gate insulator to induce a conductive breakdown in the gate insulator material. Location of the conductive breakdown within the gate insulator and in relation to the source node and drain node can be highly unpredictable, randomly resulting in a higher gate-source current or higher gate-drain current, respectively. The gate-source or gate-drain current can be measured and digitized to generate the PUF data value from the transistor. Moreover, PUF data values generated from multiple transistors can be highly non-correlated and useful for a random data sequence for cryptographic applications and other security applications.