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SRAM PUF Technology
Synopsys provides a broad portfolio of highly integrated security IP solutions that use a common set of standards-based cryptographic components and security concepts to enable the most efficient silicon design and highest levels of security for a range of products in the mobile, automotive, digital home, IoT and cloud computing markets. Specifically for device-unique data security and authentication, Synopsys is leveraging its patented SRAM Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) technology.
Using this technology, security keys and unique identifiers can be extracted from the innate characteristics of each semiconductor. Like biometrics measures, these identifiers cannot be cloned, guessed, stolen, or shared. Keys are generated only when required and don’t remain stored on the system, providing the highest protection level.
Our SRAM PUF-based security solutions are suitable for secure key generation and storage, device authentication, flexible key provisioning, and chip asset management. They can be used to secure payments, to protect highly sensitive data, for anti-counterfeiting and anti-cloning, to prevent identity theft, piracy of media content and software apps, software reverse engineering, and more.
Synopsys' PUF security solutions are available as hard and soft Intellectual Property (IP) and are used by companies who want a proven, easy, and cost-efficient way to provide a solid trust base within their devices and applications.
What is SRAM PUF?
A PUF is a physical entity embodied in a physical structure. PUFs utilize deep submicron variations that occur naturally during semiconductor production, and which give each transistor slightly random electric properties – and, therefore a unique identity.
Synopsys created SRAM PUF, based on the behavior of standard SRAM memory available in any digital chip, to differentiate devices such as microcontrollers from each other. Every SRAM cell has its own preferred state every time the SRAM is powered, resulting from random differences in the threshold voltages. This randomness is expressed in the startup values of “uninitialized” SRAM memory. Hence, an SRAM response yields a unique and random pattern of 0’s and 1’s. This pattern is like a chip’s fingerprint since it is unique to a particular SRAM and hence a particular chip.
Synopsys uses this unique fingerprint to derive a secret cryptographic key that serves as the foundation for a security subsystem.
Extracting a Secure Key from the Silicon Fingerprint
The SRAM PUF response is a noisy fingerprint, and turning it into a high-quality and secure key vault requires further processing. This is done with the Synopsys PUF IP. Using our PUF IP, it is possible to reconstruct exactly the same cryptographic key every time and under all environmental circumstances.
This way of deriving a key from the SRAM properties has great security advantages compared to traditional key storage in non-volatile memory. Because the key is not permanently stored, it is not present when the device is not active (no key at rest), and hence cannot be found by an attacker who opens up the device and compromises the memory contents.
Synopsys' SRAM PUF technology has been tested under extreme conditions of temperature, aging, and usage and has been fine-tuned over a decade to ensure that it works reliably over time in every imaginable scenario for all major IC technologies.
Benefits
- Device-unique, unclonable fingerprint
- Leverages entropy of manufacturing process
- No key material programmed
Applications
- Secure Key Storage
- Authentication
- Flexible Key Provisioning
- Anti-Counterfeiting
- Hardware-Software Binding
- Supply Chain Protection
Specifications
- 256- or 128-bit key entropy
- Highly reliable across large range of operating environments and on every technology node
- Lifetime > 25 years
- Requires uninitialized SRAM
Resources
White Paper
White Paper
White Paper