  Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) exploit the intrinsic complexity and
irreproducibility of physical systems to generate secret information. PUFs have
the potential to provide fundamentally higher security than traditional
cryptographic methods by preventing the cloning of identities and the
extraction of secret keys. One unique and exciting opportunity is that of using
the super-high information content (SHIC) capability of nanocrossbar
architecture as well as the high resistance programming variation of resistive
memories to develop a highly secure on-chip PUFs for extremely resource
constrained devices characterized by limited power and area budgets such as
passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices. We show how to implement
PUF based on nano-scale memristive (resistive memory) devices (mrPUF). Our
proposed architecture significantly increased the number of possible
challenge-response pairs (CRPs), while also consuming relatively lesser power
(around 70 uW). The presented approach can be used in other silicon-based PUFs
as well.
