PUFsecurity IP Open Source Program: Bridging the Gap in Chip Security

June 2, 2020 -- We live in a world where 5G, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things rapidly change our lifestyle. It is a smart and borderless global community. However, with the huge amount of personal information, cloud services, big data, and other network cloud-related applications, information leakage, tampering and other security issues are testing the security of these technologies. To protect IoT devices, hardware security solutions are the ideal solution since they are more reliable than software solutions. However, building a security design team is not only costly, but also time-consuming; as a result, the amount of time and capital required makes hardware security hard to adopt.

PUFsecurity dedicated to the development of PUF-based hardware security IPs to meet the needs in different chip applications. By recognizing the difficulties chip manufacturers face while trying to secure chips, and the expectations of efficient integration, PUFsecurity takes the lead in launching the “IP GO” security opensource program. Researchers and chip designers who have security needs are welcome to download our “evaluation pack” for simulation and verification. To start, everyone can apply for free download of an "assessment" before heading onto PUFsecurity core IP "Applicable modules" and basic encryption algorithms that used for simulation and verification of preliminary design. "PUF-based Hardware Security Solutions provide very secure Root of Trust to secure customers’ products. We hope to lower the initial threshold and cost for partners to adopt PUF security functions, and to achieve the goal of secure operation, secure computing, and secure storage," said Charles Hsu, the president of PUFsecurity.

Project Initial Stage: PUFrt Trial Module, a Hardware Root of Trust

At the beginning of the IP GO project, PUFrt is the main IP with a high-security hardware root of trust (HRoT) that contains three main functions:

1. PUFkeyst: a 4Kb mass production OTP with built-in instant hardware encryption
2. PUFuid: Eight sets of hardware fingerprints, each with the ability to act as a unique private key, UID, or root key.
3. PUFtrng: a high-quality true random number generator

The PUFrt evaluation kit is composed of a digital part (PUFsecurity’s RTL design in encrypted Verilog format) and an analog part (eMemory’s OTP/PUF behavioral model in Verilog format), user manual, and simulation environment. With this evaluation kit, an SoC designer can apply and simulate the function of PUFrt in the pre-design stage, allowing designers to evaluate whether adding a hardware root of trust at the front-end design stage is suitable. The PUFrt design also includes a standard APB slave interface, making it easy to plug into existing systems that support the APB bus standard.

Join IP GO and be the first to try PUF-based IP

Before we grant access to downloading our IP, applicants will be asked to establish NDA with both PUFsecurity and eMemory. For more information, please visit: https://www.pufsecurity.com/ip-go