Physical Unclonable Functions using DNA
Abstract
Significant research has been carried out for authentication of electronic chips. In electronic systems, authentication is achieved by authenticating a response to one or more challenges from a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) that has a unique signature due to the process and manufacturing variations. The signature, also referred to as an authentication key, is not known during design stage and can be known only after the chip is fabricated. The proposed project will investigate realization of PUFs using molecular computing. These molecular reactions will then be converted to DNA strand displacement reactions to implement PUFs using DNA. A feasibility proof of the proposed DNA PUFs using computer simulations may pave the way for use of the proposed molecular and DNA PUFs in biosecurity applications. It is important to point out that, to the best of the PI s knowledge, molecular and DNA PUFs have never been investigated. The proposed work is likely the first effort to demonstrate DNA PUFs in simulations that may be realizable and can be demonstrated in a test tube. Different multiplexer (MUX) PUF structures will be investigated. Examples include: linear, non-linear (feed-forward) and XOR with binary challenges as well as stochastic or probabilistic challenges. Their properties with respect to uniqueness, interchip and intrachip variations will be investigated. Several electronic PUFs have been known to be non-unique. All molecular PUFs should have unique signatures. In all molecular PUFs, maximum intra-chip variation should be less than minimum interchip variation. PUFs rely on randomness due to manufacturing variations. If the process technology is mature, then the variation is small and the PUFs are not as robust. In such cases, variance or total amount of randomness can be changed by increasing the number of stages. In molecular PUFs, different molecular realizations of MUXes may lead to different amount of randomness. Various molecular building blocks of multiplexers will be simulated. Their mass kinetics will be analyzed. The ultimate objective is to demonstrate molecular and DNA PUFs that can exploit randomness of chemical reaction rate constants and generate unique signatures and are attack resistant.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 25, 2021
- Source ID
- W911NF2110265
Entities
People
- Keshab K. Parhi
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Minnesota