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US 10,652,032 B2Granted
Device signature generation
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsShih-Lien Linus Lu, Anthony Oates, Ming-Hsien Lin, Shou-Chung Lee
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and systems for generating a signature for a device include pre-charging a plurality of conductors to a first voltage level. A voltage leakage for each of the conductors is determined, and a device signature is generating based on the determined leakage.
Claims18
A method of generating a signature for a device, comprising:
- providing a plurality of wire pairs, each of the wire pairs including a signature wire and a ground wire;
- controlling a plurality of switching devices to selectively connect the signature wires to a power source and pre-charge the signature wires to a first voltage level;
- determining a voltage leakage of each of the signature wires, including allowing the first voltage level to fall to a second voltage level due to leakage of signature wires and comparing the second voltage level to a predetermined third voltage level;
- generating a device signature based on the comparison of the second voltage level to the predetermined third voltage level;
- and
- outputting the device signature in response to the second voltage level of a predetermined number of the signature wires reaching the third voltage level.
3 more elements
A system for generating a device signature, comprising:
- a plurality of wire pairs, each of the wire pairs including a signature wire and a ground wire, wherein each of the ground wires is connected to a ground terminal and each of the signature wires corresponds to an output bit of a device signature;
- a plurality of switching devices, each configured to selectively connect a corresponding one of the signature wires to a pre-charge voltage terminal;
- a controller configured to
- operate the switching devices to selectively connect the signature wires to the pre-charge voltage terminal to pre-charge each of the signature wires to a first voltage level;
- after pre-charging, operate the switching devices to disconnect the signature wires from the pre-charge voltage terminal;
- after a first elapsed time period, determine a second voltage level of each of the signature wires;
- based on the determined second voltage level of each of the signature wires, assign a logic value to each of the signature wires, and
- output the device signature based on the assigned logic value of each of the signature wires.
5 more elements
An integrated circuit device, comprising:
- a substrate;
- a plurality of wire pairs formed on the substrate, each of the wire pairs including a signature wire and an adjacent ground wire such that the signature wires and the ground wires are interleaved;
- a plurality of switching devices formed on the substrate and configured to selectively connect the signature wires to a power source terminal;
- a controller configured to
- operate the switching devices to connect the signature wires to the power source to pre-charge the signature wires to a first voltage level;
- operate the switching devices to disconnect the signature wires from the power source after a predetermined time period;
- allowing the first voltage level of each of the signature wires to fall due to voltage leakage of the wire pairs;
- and
- in response to a predetermined number of signature wires falling to a predetermined second voltage level, output a device signature based on the voltage leakage of the plurality of wire pairs.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.