A Self-Checking RRAM-Based PUF with Reliability-Quantified CRPs via Resistance-Delay Mapping

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are vital for secure hardware authentication due to their intrinsic uniqueness. RRAM-based PUFs offer advantages such as compactness, low power, and CMOS compatibility, but suffer from reliability issues under environmental stress such as temperature and aging. This work proposes a self-checking RRAM-based PUF architecture using a resistance-delay mapping method to generate reliability-quantified challenge-response pairs (CRPs). A configurable Delay Amplification Chain (DAC) converts device-to-device(D2D) resistance variations into measurable timing differences, ensuring stable operation from -55℃ to 125℃ and ±10% VDD fluctuations. A built-in self-checking mechanism filters unstable CRPs via complementary delay biases during the dark bit filtration stage, reducing bit error rate (BER) from 5.2% to 0.77%. A hierarchical framework further classifies CRPs into 11 reliability levels, enabling adaptive key management. Implemented in 180nm CMOS/RRAM technology, the design achieves 49.61% inter-chip and 49.80% intra-chip Hamming distances across 50 instances, showing strong uniqueness and reconfigurability. No BER degradation was found in 10-year aging simulations. The design meets NIST SP800-22 randomness standards and offers a scalable and entropy-aware solution for IoT security.