Granted Patent B2

US 12,706,761 · App. 18/792,303 · Granted Aug 11, 2026

Inventors: Sylvain Guilley (Paris, FR); Florent Lozac'h (Servon-sur-Vilaine, FR)

Assignee: SECURE-IC SAS

H04L9/3278H04L9/0891

Abstract

Claims (32)

1 . An adaptive control system of a configurable strong PUF source (CSPS) configured to deliver a self-enrollment status (SE_S), a key (K) and a key rebuilding status (KR_S), comprising:

an adaptive PUF control unit (ACU) configured to:

receive information of entropy of at least one key, reliability of the at least one key and PUF index representative of one of the at least one key;

challenge and configure the strong PUF source (CSPS); and

receive a quantized non-binary response in feedback of the strong PUF source (CSPS);

a PUF control logic finite state machine (CFSM) configured to drive the adaptive control unit (ACU), configured to:

receive a PUF mode operation to execute, first self-enrollment (SE), then key rebuilding (KR);

access to data representative of one-time programmable policy (P_OTP);

write and read data of a data RAM (D_RAM); and

write and read a one-time programmable data (D_OTP).

2 . The adaptive control system of a strong PUF source according to claim 1 , wherein the PUF control logic finite state machine (CFSM) is configured to:

access data RAM to make a repeated data collection of challenges/responses leveraging the data RAM (D_RAM) for accumulations;

if PUF mode operation received is self-enrollment (SE), select the most reliable challenges having a reliability greater than a reliability threshold, deliver a self-enrollment status (SE_S) taking the value good or bad depending on whether the self-enrollment went successfully or not, according to the corresponding reliability being greater than the reliability threshold and the corresponding entropy being greater than an entropy threshold, and write whitelisted challenges having a good self-enrollment status (SE_S) in the one-time programmable data (D_OTP); and

if PUF mode operation received is key rebuilding (KR), read the whitelisted challenges in the one-time programmable data (D_OTP), apply all whitelisted challenged, decide the key bits using adaptive control by querying the strong bit until the entropy and reliability thresholds are surpassed, deliver a key rebuilding status (KR_S) taking the value good or bad depending on whether the self-enrollment went successfully or not, and deliver a key (Key).

3 . The adaptive control system of a strong PUF source according to claim 2 , wherein the PUF control logic finite state machine (CFSM) is also configured to:

if PUF mode operation received is health tests (HT), estimate the reliability and the entropy of the at least one key, and deliver a health tests status (HT_S) taking the value good or bad depending on whether health tests are successful or not.

4 . The adaptive control system of a strong PUF source according claim 1 , wherein the one-time programmable data (D_OTP) contain:

a whitelist per PUF instance;

entropy and reliability thresholds; and

a life cycle for each PUF.

5 . The adaptive control system of a strong PUF source according to claim 2 , wherein the one-time programmable data (D_OTP) contain a life cycle for each PUF, including whether the PUF is enrolled.

6 . A method to deliver a self-enrollment status (SE_S), a key (K) and a key rebuilding status (KR_S), the method being implemented by an adaptive control system of a strong PUF source, the method comprising:

receiving information of entropy of at least one key, reliability of the at least one key and PUF index representative of one of the at least one key;

challenging and configure the strong PUF source (CSPS); and

receiving a quantized non-binary response in feedback of the strong PUF source (CSPS);

implemented in an adaptive PUF control unit (ACU), and the method comprising:

receiving a PUF mode operation to execute, first self-enrollment (SE), then key rebuilding (KR);

accessing to data representative of one-time programmable policy (P_OTP);

writing and reading data of a data RAM (D_RAM);

writing and reading a one-time programmable data (D_OTP);

implemented in a PUF control logic finite state machine (CFSM) configured to drive the adaptive control unit (ACU).

7 . A computer program product comprising instructions for carrying out the steps of the method of claim 6 .

Assignments (1)

Priority Claims (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (32)