Brand and IP protection with physical unclonable functions

In this paper we provide an overview of Physical Unclonable Functions and explain why they are a very valuable technology to protect a company’s IP and hence at the same time its brand. Physical Unclonable Functions are unclonable physical structures that map challenges to responses. They inherit their unclonability from the (deep sub-micron) process variations during manufacturing. They can be turned into a useful tool to generate very secure secret keys in ICs and to provide keys to protect valuable IP of fabless IC companies, IP Vendors and design houses. We will present several examples and explain cryptographic algorithms and protocols to use them in IP protection applications.