Logic Locking Using Emerging 2T/3T Magnetic Tunnel Junctions for Hardware Security

Abstract

With the advancement of beyond CMOS devices, a new approach to utilize the inherent physics of such emerging structures for various applications is of great interest in recent research. Spintronics-based devices offer key advantages like ease of fabrication with Si-substrate, non-volatile memory, low operational voltage, and non-linear device characteristics, which have shown potential for several emerging fields of study. Hardware security is one of the key interest areas which heavily relies on CMOS-based ICs, and the defense and attack mechanism is mostly based on CMOS-based structures. This work explores several emerging structures based on 2T/3T magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) for possible logic locking applications in hardware security systems. We demonstrate the effect of MTJ-based devices to implement logic locking even in the presence of process variations, and its ability of robustness to device imperfections has been evaluated using monte carlo simulations for practical applications.