Self-Timed Physically Unclonable Functions

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) exploit the physical characteristics of silicon and provide an alternative to storing digital encryption keys in non-volatile memory. In this seminal work, I propose for the first time the use of self-timed logic to implement PUFs. I describe two methods of using self-timed logic to implement novel PUF designs: SMARTPUF-I and SMARTPUF-II. The PUF designs I present address the challenges facing PUFs which prevent widespread adoption: robustness, entropy, light-weight architectures and configurability. And seek to enable next generation security-on-chip via "smart on-chip" structures.