Advancements in memory-based cryptographic physical unclonable functions: a comprehensive review and future directions

Abstract

With lightweight hardware security becoming increasingly critical for Internet of Things devices, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have emerged as a key enabling technology, providing device authentication, cryptographic key generation, and simplified key management capabilities without requiring dedicated on-chip key storage. While conventional MemPUFs have been extensively studied, they suffer from inherent limitations such as poor non-volatility and low entropy density. In recent years, emerging non-volatile memory PUFs built on Resistive Random Access Memory, Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory, Ferroelectric Random Access Memory, and Phase-Change Random Access Memory have shown tremendous potential. However, there remains a lack of systematic reviews and performance trade-off analyses that cover cutting-edge directions and provide practical guidance for real-world design. To this end, this paper systematically reviews the full technical lineage of MemPUFs and describes different emerging MemPUFs from two dimensions: entropy sources and development trends (including reliability, security, and energy efficiency). By statistically analyzing the performance metrics of representative works on emerging MemPUFs over the past five years, this paper reveals the critical impact of device selection on the overall performance of PUFs. On this basis, it systematically dissects the dual impact of Multi-Level Cell technology on PUF performance and prospectively discusses the "computation-security integration" architecture based on the deep convergence of Computing-in-memory and PUFs. The findings of this paper fill the gap in systematic reviews of emerging NVM PUFs and provide a valuable reference for the design of next generation low-power and high-security hardware security primitives for edge computing.