A lightweight security primitive using laser-based fault injection

Security and low power are essential requirements for sensor networks. In order to meet these requirements we have proposed a new type of lightweight security primitive using laser-based fault injection. The essential idea is to use lasers to cut the wires in the circuit layouts, thus to intentionally introduce faults in circuits. We have the following key observations: (1) Large VLSI ICs with partial faults can produce highly unpredictable outputs. (2) Faults in different positions in circuits can cause huge difference in outputs alternation. Therefore, we take advantage of the excellent output randomness of the circuit after fault-injection and directly use it as a security primitive. Compared to the traditional security primitive, e.g., PUF, our proposed laser-based security primitive is robust and resiliency against conditions of operations. More importantly, it employs very low power consumption, therefore providing an ideal platform for sensor networks. We compare the fault injection on standard modules, such as adders, multipliers, and XOR networks and further propose the best architecture. Our statistical tests indicate that by using the laser-based fault injection, lightweight security primitives for sensor networks with small footprint and low energy can be created.