A novel memristor based physically unclonable function

•We propose a novel hybrid memristor-CMOS XOR/XOR gate.•It has pure combinational behavior.•Novel hybrid memristor-CMOS PUF circuit.•Low VLSI design overhead.•Resistant against modelling attacks.

Memristor is an exciting new addition to the repertoire of fundamental circuit elements. Alternatives to many security protocols originally employing traditional mathematical cryptography involve novel hardware security primitives, such as Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs). In this paper, we first introduce a novel hybrid memristor–CMOS XOR/XNOR logic circuit that offers several advantages such as combinational circuit behavior, simpler operation and lower hardware overhead than existing solutions. Then, we use this XOR circuit as a component to design a hybrid memristor–CMOS PUF circuit and demonstrate its effectiveness through extensive simulations of environmental and process variation effects. The proposed PUF circuit has substantially lesser hardware overhead than previously proposed memristor-based PUF circuits, while being resistant against machine learning based modelling attacks. The proposed PUF can be conveniently used in many security applications and protocols based on hardware-intrinsic security.