Scalable and CMOS compatible silicon photonic physical unclonable functions for supply chain assurance

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 15653
• Main Authors: Tarik, Farhan Bin, Famili, Azadeh, Lao, Yingjie, Ryckman, Judson D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group 19.09.2022; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Automation; Cloning; CMOS; Correlation analysis; Design; Fabrication; Semiconductors; Silicon; Supply chains
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-19796-z

Abstract We demonstrate the uniqueness, unclonability and secure authentication of N  = 56 physical unclonable functions (PUFs) realized from silicon photonic moiré quasicrystal interferometers. Compared to prior photonic-PUF demonstrations typically limited in scale to only a handful of unique devices and on the order of 10 false authentication attempts, this work examines > 10 3 inter-device comparisons and false authentication attempts. Device fabrication is divided across two separate fabrication facilities, allowing for cross-fab analysis and emulation of a malicious foundry with exact knowledge of the PUF photonic circuit design and process. Our analysis also compares cross-correlation based authentication to the traditional Hamming distance method and experimentally demonstrates an authentication error rate AER = 0%, false authentication rate FAR = 0%, and an estimated probability of cloning below 10 −30 . This work validates the potential scalability of integrated photonic-PUFs which can attractively leverage mature wafer-scale manufacturing and automated contact-free optical probing. Such structures show promise for authenticating hardware in the untrusted supply chain or augmenting conventional electronic-PUFs to enhance system security.