This work proposes a methodology to estimate the statistical distribution of
the probability that a 6T bit-cell starts up to a given logic value in SRAM
memories for PUF applications. First, the distribution is obtained
experimentally in a 65-nm CMOS device. As this distribution cannot be
reproduced by electrical simulation, we explore the use of an alternative
parameter defined as the distance between the origin and the separatrix in the
bit-cell state space to quantify the mismatch of the cell. The resulting
distribution of this parameter obtained from Monte Carlo simulations is then
related to the start-up probability distribution using a two-component logistic
function. The reported results show that the proposed imbalance factor is a
good predictor for PUF-related reliability estimation with the advantage that
can be applied at the early design stages.