Sensitivity of the Threshold Current for Switching of a Magnetic Tunnel Junction to Fabrication Defects and Its Application in Physical Unclonable Functions
Source abstract
Abstract
A physical unclonable function (PUF) leverages the unclonable random variations in device behavior due to defects incurred during manufacturing to produce a unique “biometric” that can be used for authentication. Here, we show that the threshold current for the switching of a magnetic tunnel junction via spin transfer torque is sensitive to the nature of structural defects introduced during manufacturing and hence can be the basis of a PUF. We use micromagnetic simulations to study the threshold currents for six different defect morphologies at two different temperatures to establish the viability of a PUF. We also derive the challenge–response set at the two different temperatures to calculate the inter- and intra-Hamming distances for a given challenge.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security · Integrated Circuits and Semiconductor Failure Analysis · Advanced Memory and Neural Computing
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
Funding
US National Science Foundation
References (15)
Show source-provided references
1. Physical Unclonable Functions and Applications: A Tutorial10.1109/JPROC.2014.2320516 ↗
2. Highly Secure Physically Unclonable Cryptographic Primitives Based on Interfacial Magnetic Anisotropy10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b03338 ↗
3. Reconfigurable Physical Unclonable Function Based on Spin-Orbit Torque Induced Chiral Domain Wall Motion10.1109/LED.2021.3057638 ↗
4. Kumar, A., Sahay, S., and Suri, M. (2018, January 6–10). Switching-Time Dependent PUF Using STT-MRAM. Proceedings of the 2018 31th International Conference on VLSI Design and 2018 17th International Conference on Embedded Systems (IEEE), Pune, India.10.1109/VLSID.2018.103 ↗
5. MRAM PUF: A novel geometry based magnetic PUF with integrated CMOS10.1109/TNANO.2015.2397951 ↗
6. Zhang, L., Fong, X., Chang, C.H., Kong, Z.H., and Roy, K. (2014, January 18–21). Feasibility study of emerging non-volatile memory based physical unclonable functions. Proceedings of the IEEE 6th International Memory Workshop, Taipei, Taiwan.10.1109/IMW.2014.6849384 ↗
7. Extracting physically unclonable function from spin transfer switching characteristics in magnetic tunnel junctions10.1109/TMAG.2014.2325646 ↗
8. STT-MRAM-based PUF architecture exploiting magnetic tunnel junction fabrication-induced variability
9. Rose, G.S., McDonald, N., Yan, L.-K., and Wysocki, B. (2013, January 18–21). A write-time based memristive puf for hardware security applications. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), San Jose, CA, USA.10.1109/ICCAD.2013.6691209 ↗
10. (2025, August 10). Available online: https://www.ugent.be/we/solidstatesciences/dynamat/en/mumax.
11. Reliability of magnetoelastic switching of nonideal nanomagnets with defects: A case study for the viability of straintronic logic and memory10.1103/PhysRevApplied.12.034010 ↗
12. Thermal Fluctuations of a Single-Domain Particle10.1103/PhysRev.130.1677 ↗
13. Spin current interaction with a monodomain magnetic body: A model study10.1103/PhysRevB.62.570 ↗
14. Current-driven magnetic switching in manganite trilayer junctions10.1016/S0304-8853(99)00289-9 ↗
15. Bandyopadhyay, S. (2022). Magnetic Straintronics: An Energy-Efficient Hardware Paradigm for Digital and Analog Information Processing, Springer Nature. Synthesis Lectures on Engineering, Science and Technology.10.1007/978-3-031-20683-2 ↗