P.U.F. Technolgy

Brand Sentry has at its disposal a wide range of technologies it can bring to bear against the threat of counterfeiting. Among these are some of the more commonly used technologies including specialized printed ink, conventional anti-tamper packaging, as well as, for certain high-value products, cryptographic solutions. However, Brand Sentry also has in its arsenal a powerful and innovative new technology solution for anti-counterfeiting called Physical "Unclonable" Functions (PUFs). This technology was recently pioneered at MIT and productized by a world-class team in Silicon Valley and perfected for use in a remarkable new class of low-cost, highly secure RFIDs. Our PUF-based solutions tap the "physical DNA" intrinsic to silicon crystals at the atomic level to generate effectively unclonable secret keys that can be extracted electronically from chips attached to branded products. Our approach brings this powerful new tool to counterfeit detection and prevention. Core characteristics of this technology are:

Unclonable

Cannot be copied or duplicated

Low-cost

Cost-effective deployments

Low-power

Can be used with hand-held readers

Small & flexible

Can be integrated into many form factors

Robust

Works in harsh operating environments

PUF-based secret keys are, in fact, never burned into the chips themselves. Rather each PUF-based secret is intrinsic to the physical characteristics of the silicon itself and come into existence only when it is fabricated. But by using advanced PUF technology, even the manufacturer of the chips does not know these secrets and cannot duplicate the "physical DNA" of any single chip. PUF-based secrets exist only when power is applied and can only be generated, read, and authenticated by our Brand Sentry-authorized systems.