electrical circuit contains elements with unique id
This is what Dallas One-Wire is for.


  The basis of 1-Wire® technology is a serial protocol using a single data line plus ground reference for communication. A 1-Wire master initiates and controls the communication with one or more 1-Wire slave devices on the 1-Wire bus (Figure 1). Each 1-Wire slave device has a unique, unalterable, factory-programmed, 64-bit ID (identification number), which serves as device address on the 1-Wire bus.