Lightweight Secure Boot of Embedded System Based on Physical Unclonable Function

Embedded system has the advantage of customizable hardware and software, which makes it able to meet the strict requirements of application system, such as function, cost, volume, power consumption and so on. As a result, it is widely used in various industries. In recent years, the rapid development of mobile Internet and wearable smart devices has made embedded products quietly integrated into People's Daily life, and play an extremely important role in information communication, consumer entertainment and even online transactions. But at the same time a large amount of private and sensitive information is passed and stored. Therefore, the security of embedded system has been paid more and more attention. Boot is one of the critical points during the overall process of a secure system where system integrity can be compromised. In this manuscript, the current security threats of embedded systems are fully studied, and the Physical Unclonable Function (PUF), a hardware security primitive which can be used in the security field of integrated circuits, is applied to the system security protection. On the basis of PUF structure, with other algorithms and structures, the Key Management Unit is constructed, and a secure boot mechanism suitable for embedded system is designed. The lightweight of the boot process is also quite important. It affects the running time of the whole system, so we need to find a balance between lightweight and security.