Hardware Security Primitives

Hardware security primitives play an important role in ensuring trust, integrity, and authenticity of integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems. Primitives, such as physical unclonable functions (PUFs) and true random number generators (TRNGs) produce device-intrinsic electronic fingerprints and random digital signatures, respectively, to generate cryptographic keys and IDs commonly used for device authentication, cloning prevention, generating session keys, nonce, and many more. Further, designs, such as combating die and IC recycling (CDIR) sensors offer countermeasures against IC counterfeiting (recycling), which is of a significant concern in the modern electronic supply chain. In this chapter, common hardware security primitives and designs for countermeasures against various threats, and vulnerabilities are discussed. First, the device-intrinsic properties are briefly discussed as these features play key roles in designing various security primitives. Following, hardware security primitives—namely PUF and TRNG—and designs for anticounterfeit (DfAC) are explained in detail with multiple examples and relevant applications. The chapter ends with a brief look at post-CMOS security primitives designs equipped with emerging nanoscale electronic devices.