Hybrid PUF Tag Generation Technology for Battery Anti-counterfeiting

ObjectiveA global shift toward a low-carbon economy has increased the importance of power batteries as energy storage devices. The traceability and security of their life cycle are central to industrial governance. In 2023, the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) proposed the Battery Passport, which requires each battery to carry a unique, tamper-resistant, and verifiable digital identity. Conventional digital tags, such as QR codes and RFID, rely on static pre-written storage and remain vulnerable to physical cloning, data extraction, and environmental degradation. This study proposes a battery anti-counterfeiting tag generation technology based on a hybrid Physical Unclonable Function (PUF). The method applies physical coupling among the battery, PCB, and IC to generate a unique battery ID, and ensures strong physical binding and system-level anti-counterfeiting performance.MethodsThe tag includes four modules: an off-chip RC battery fingerprint extraction circuit, an on-chip arbiter PUF module, an on-chip delay compensation module, and a reliability enhancement module. The off-chip RC circuit uses the physical coupling between the battery negative tab and the PCB copper-clad area to form a capacitor structure that introduces manufacturing variation as an entropy source. The arbiter PUF converts these deviations into a unique digital signature. To reduce bias caused by asymmetric routing and off-circuit delay, a programmable delay compensation module with coarse and fine-tuning stages is used. The reliability enhancement module filters unstable response bits by tracking delay deviation, and improves response reliability without complex error-correcting codes.Results and DiscussionsThe structure was implemented and tested using an FPGA Spartan-6 chip, a custom PCB, and 100 Ah blade batteries. The randomness reached 48.85%, and uniqueness averaged 49.15% under normal conditions (Fig. 11). Stability (RA) reached 99.98% at room temperature and nominal voltage, and remained above 98% at 100 ℃ and 1.05 V (Fig. 12). To evaluate anti-desoldering performance, three tampering scenarios were tested: battery replacement, PCB replacement, and IC replacement. The average response change rates were 14.86%, 24.58%, and 41.66%, respectively (Fig. 13). These results show strong physical binding among the battery, PCB, and chip, and confirm that the triple physical coupling mechanism resists counterfeiting and tampering.ConclusionsThis study presents a battery anti-counterfeiting tag generation technology based on a triple physical coupling mechanism. By binding the battery tab, PCB, and chip into a unified physical structure and extracting fingerprints from manufacturing variation, the method provides high randomness, uniqueness, and stability. The tag is highly sensitive to physical tampering and supports reliable battery authentication across its life cycle. Future work will examine the structure using more advanced fabrication processes and different PCB manufacturers, and will further refine the design for broader application.