Design and Evaluation of a Tunable PUF Architecture for FPGAs

FPGA-based Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) have emerged as a viable alternative to permanent key storage by turning effects of inaccuracies during the manufacturing process of a chip into a unique, FPGA-intrinsic secret. However, many fixed PUF designs may suffer from unsatisfactory statistical properties in terms of uniqueness, uniformity, and robustness. Moreover, a PUF signature may alter over time due to aging or changing operating conditions, rendering a PUF insecure in the worst case. As a remedy, we propose CHOICE , a novel class of FPGA-based PUF designs with tunable uniqueness and reliability characteristics. By the use of addressable shift registers available on an FPGA, we show that a wide configuration space for adjusting a device-specific PUF response is obtained without any sacrifice of randomness. In particular, we demonstrate the concept of address-tunable propagation delays, whereby we are able to increase or decrease the probability of obtaining “ 1 ”s in the PUF response. Experimental evaluations on a group of six 28 nm Xilinx Artix-7 FPGAs show that CHOICE PUFs provide a large range of configurations to allow a fine-tuning to an average uniqueness between 49% and 51%, while simultaneously achieving bit error rates below 1.5%, thus outperforming state-of-the-art PUF designs. Moreover, with only a single FPGA slice per PUF bit, CHOICE is one of the smallest PUF designs currently available for FPGAs. It is well-known that signal propagation delays are affected by temperature, as the operating temperature impacts the internal currents of transistors that ultimately make up the circuit. We therefore comprehensively investigate how temperature variations affect the PUF response and demonstrate how the tunability of CHOICE enables us to determine configurations that show a high robustness to such variations. As a case study, we present a cryptographic key generation scheme based on CHOICE PUF responses as device-intrinsic secret and investigate the design objectives resource costs, performance, and temperature robustness to show the practicability of our approach.

Evaluation of The New Student Candidates admission Information System Using ISO/IEC 25010 Model

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is very important to pay attention to the evaluation of the quality of higher education information systems because most of internet users were only accessed from home. So it is necessary to evaluate to produce a quality system. This study aimed to evaluate the information system for the candidate of new student admissions at the Muhammadiyah University of Education Sorong. This evaluation was conducted to find out that SIPMB Unimuda Sorong was designed according to the wishes, and how high the level of user satisfaction was. This study used five characteristics that exist in ISO/IE 25010. The results showed that the usability characteristic test obtained a percentage value of 77% in the Very Eligible category. Meanwhile, in testing the functional suitability characteristics, it obtained a score percentage of 98% in the Very Good category. In testing the performance efficiency characteristics, it has met the standard because the average time used is 3.1 seconds for page load, page size is 866 kb, page speed is in Grade C (72%), and Yslow is in grade A (93%) so that we get very good category. The maintainability characteristic test is carried out by taking into account the three test criteria. The test results showed that the system has met the three categories they were instrumentation, consistency, and simplicity, so that SIPMB has met the maintainability test. And testing the reliability characteristics obtained a percentage value of 100%, this shows that SIPMB has met the Telcordia standard. Based on the results of testing and analysis, it can be said that SIPM UNIMUDA Sorong has product quality in accordance with ISO/IEC 25010 Software Product Quality standards.

A review of thermohydrodynamic aspects of gas foil bearings

In recent times, gas foil bearings have become popular for commercial use in the aircraft and space industry, turbocompressors, turbine generators and in the more complex fields of turbochargers and turboexpanders. The gain in popularity for gas foil bearings is due to their features such as contamination-free zone, wide temperature range, higher stability and higher reliability characteristics as compared to other types of bearings. However, several challenges have come across while analysing the gas foil bearing behaviour at different working conditions. The current paper presents an overview of the work done in the past few decades for developing numerical models and listing the efforts of several researchers around the world to conduct the experimental investigation for predicting and analysing thermohydrodynamic behaviour of gas foil bearings at different operating conditions. It is expected that the current paper will help readers to thoroughly understand the hydrodynamic and thermal aspects of gas foil bearings.

Electrical Characteristics and Reliability of SiCN/ Porous SiOCH Stacked Dielectric: Effects of Deposition Temperature of SiCN Film

Silicon carbonitride (SiCN) films deposited using silazane singe-precursor with different temperatures were capped onto porous carbon-doped silicon oxide (p-SiOCH) dielectric films. Effects on the electrical and reliability characteristics of the fabricated SiCN/p-SiOCH stacked dielectrics were investigated. Experimental results indicated that increasing the deposition temperature of the SiCN film increased barrier capacity against Cu migration under thermal and electrical stress and time-dependence-dielectric-breakdown reliability for the SiCN/p-SiOCH stacked dielectric. Therefore, this study provides a promising processing to deposit a SiCN barrier by elevating the deposition temperature and using N-methyl-aza-2,2,4-trimethylsilacyclopentane singe-precursor, which can be applied to back-end-of-line interconnects for advanced technological nodes in the semiconductor industry. A larger capacitance, however, is the main issue due to a larger intrinsic dielectric constant of the SiCN film and stronger plasma-induced damage on the p-SiOCH film. As a result, the related actions will be taken in the future research to improve this issue.

Systems engineering analysis of diagnostic referral closed-loop processes

BackgroundClosing loops to complete diagnostic referrals remains a significant patient safety problem in most health systems, with 65%–73% failure rates and significant delays common despite years of improvement efforts, suggesting new approaches may be useful. Systems engineering (SE) methods increasingly are advocated in healthcare for their value in studying and redesigning complex processes.ObjectiveConduct a formative SE analysis of process logic, variation, reliability and failures for completing diagnostic referrals originating in two primary care practices serving different demographics, using dermatology as an illustrating use case.MethodsAn interdisciplinary team of clinicians, systems engineers, quality improvement specialists, and patient representatives collaborated to understand processes of initiating and completing diagnostic referrals. Cross-functional process maps were developed through iterative group interviews with an urban community-based health centre and a teaching practice within a large academic medical centre. Results were used to conduct an engineering process analysis, assess variation within and between practices, and identify common failure modes and potential solutions.ResultsProcesses to complete diagnostic referrals involve many sub-standard design constructs, with significant workflow variation between and within practices, statistical instability and special cause variation in completion rates and timeliness, and only 21% of all process activities estimated as value-add. Failure modes were similar between the two practices, with most process activities relying on low-reliability concepts (eg, reminders, workarounds, education and verification/inspection). Several opportunities were identified to incorporate higher reliability process constructs (eg, simplification, consolidation, standardisation, forcing functions, automation and opt-outs).ConclusionFrom a systems science perspective, diagnostic referral processes perform poorly in part because their fundamental designs are fraught with low-reliability characteristics and mental models, including formalised workaround and rework activities, suggesting a need for different approaches versus incremental improvement of existing processes. SE perspectives and methods offer new ways of thinking about patient safety problems, failures and potential solutions.