PUFs for robust authentication

Posted by Ken Y-N on September 8th, 2008 at 01:55pm

Here’s a topic I heard quite a bit about a few years ago, but I’ve been out of the loop until I read this press release about Verayo announcing their new security solutions based around “unclonable” silicon chips which contain these PUFs, or Physically Unclonable Functions. They work by taking advantage of the outcome of the manufacture of each chip being slightly different due to random variations in the etching or depositing of materials, resulting in a few more or less molecules present on the chip. By accurately measuring these differences, a unique fingerprint for each chip is generated. At least that’s how I remember it being explained to me!

So, Verayo’s methods can be integrated into lots of different chips, from simple RFID chips to full-blown microprocessors, for use in many situation where precise identity is required. The CTO and co-founder of the company, Professor Srini Devadas, says:

“PUF technology exploits the physical characteristics of the silicon and IC manufacturing process variations to uniquely characterize each and every silicon chip, this provides a secure, low-cost mechanism to authenticate silicon chips.”

The world’s first-ever “unclonable” (note the inverted commas!) RFID chip will be exhibited at the RFID World conference in Las Vegas on the 9th of September 2008.

Read the full press release on Centre Daily here.

Tags: puf, rfid, srini devadas, verayo

Under General Tags: puf, rfid, srini devadas, verayo