PUF Tester

Host-side Python tooling for testing and characterizing a PUF (Physically Unclonable Function) on a Xilinx Artix FPGA. One script drives the PUF over SPI (PyFTDI), collects response bytes, and writes responses.csv; the others compute reliability and uniqueness from that file for security and fingerprinting. Demonstrates hardware–software interface (SPI, PyFTDI), protocol design, and metric computation for device characterization.

automated_script.py Uses PyFTDI’s SpiController (e.g. ftdi://ftdi:2232h/1, 30 MHz SPI, mode 0). The protocol uses the lower 4 bits for command (START, SET_RUNS, SET_DELTA_HIGH, SET_DELTA_REST) and the upper 4 bits for data. configure_timing and configure_runs set timing and run count (1–15); start_run sends START and reads 16×runs bytes. main() configures timing and runs, triggers a run, and writes the response rows to responses.csv.

SPI_Interface.py Defines hamming(t1, t2) (element-wise inequality count). calc_reliability averages Hamming distance between a reference response and repeated responses (lower is more reliable). calc_uniqueness averages pairwise Hamming distance across different responses (higher is more unique). golden_response picks the most frequent response as the reference.

testing.py Reads responses.csv, sets response_ref = golden_response(responses), then calls calc_reliability and calc_uniqueness and prints the metrics (e.g. for validation or characterization reports).