Arbiter PUF—A Review of Design, Composition, and Security Aspects

Hardware security modules play a crucial role in protecting and preserving technologically integrated systems that are used in daily life. They employ cryptographic protocols to secure a system against adversaries. Generally, cryptographic algorithms and security keys are quintessential for maintaining the security of a system. Cryptography uses a secret key to encipher and decipher the data. These secret keys are stored in a non-volatile memory that attackers can easily access. The hardware security primitive, Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is a promising alternative for enhancing the security of interconnected devices. A PUF produces an output in response to an input based on physical structure and intrinsic manufacturing variations of an integrated circuit (IC). The generated random response being unpredictable, act as a robust secret key in cryptographic protocols. The first silicon PUF is the Arbiter PUF, which can instantly produce significantly more secret keys based on the input with a lightweight design. Due to its advantage, it is best suited for device authentication in resource-constrained applications employing the Internet of Things (IoT). The PUF is also suitable for applications such as the Internet of Vehicles, the Internet of Medical Things, RFID tags, and smart cards. In this paper, the basic Arbiter PUF design is implemented in ZedBoard to analyze the PUF performance characteristics for 16, 32, and 64-bit responses. A review of Arbiter PUF design, different compositions of Arbiter PUF, their individual characteristics, and vulnerabilities against machine-learning attacks have been presented at their broader best in this paper.