Dynamic memory-based physically unclonable function for the generation of unique identifiers and true random numbers

Keller, Christoph A.; Gürkaynak, Frank K.; Kaeslin, Hubert; Felber, N.

doi:10.1109/iscas.2014.6865740

Cited by 48 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Random number generators can be broadly classi ed into two categories [32,78,145,148]: 1) pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) [18,98,100,102,133], which deterministically generate numbers starting from a seed value with the goal of approximating a true random sequence, and 2) true random number generators (TRNGs) [6,16,22,23,24,33,36,47,50,55,56,57,65,77,83,96,101,111,116,119,141,143,144,146,149,151,153,155,158], which generate random numbers based on sampling non-deterministic random variables inherent in various physical phenomena (e.g., electrical noise, atmospheric noise, clock jitter, Brownian motion).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

D-RaNGe: Using Commodity DRAM Devices to Generate True Random Numbers with Low Latency and High Throughput

Kim

Patel

Hassan

et al. 2019

2019 IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA)

105

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We propose a new DRAM-based true random number generator (TRNG) that leverages DRAM cells as an entropy source.The key idea is to intentionally violate the DRAM access timing parameters and use the resulting errors as the source of randomness. Our technique speci cally decreases the DRAM row activation latency (timing parameter t RCD ) below manufacturerrecommended speci cations, to induce read errors, or activation failures, that exhibit true random behavior. We then aggregate the resulting data from multiple cells to obtain a TRNG capable of providing a high throughput of random numbers at low latency.To demonstrate that our TRNG design is viable using commodity DRAM chips, we rigorously characterize the behavior of activation failures in 282 state-of-the-art LPDDR4 devices from three major DRAM manufacturers. We verify our observations using four additional DDR3 DRAM devices from the same manufacturers. Our results show that many cells in each device produce random data that remains robust over both time and temperature variation. We use our observations to develop D-RaNGe, a methodology for extracting true random numbers from commodity DRAM devices with high throughput and low latency by deliberately violating the read access timing parameters. We evaluate the quality of our TRNG using the commonly-used NIST statistical test suite for randomness and nd that D-RaNGe: 1) successfully passes each test, and 2) generates true random numbers with over two orders of magnitude higher throughput than the previous highest-throughput DRAM-based TRNG.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

D-RaNGe: Using Commodity DRAM Devices to Generate True Random Numbers with Low Latency and High Throughput

Kim

Patel

Hassan

et al. 2019

2019 IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA)

105

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show abstract

“…Finally, concluding remarks and future works are given in Section 6. The only previous work on DRAM PUF has been based on altering or disabling the refresh cycle [6]. Modern DRAM chips have a built-in self-refresh module, as they not only require a power supply to retain data, but must also be periodically refreshed to prevent their data contents from fading away from the capacitors in their integrated circuits.…”

Section: Contributions and Paper Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A PUF is a promising solution to many security issues due its ability to generate an IC unique identifier that can resist cloning attempts as well as physical tampering. As an example, in [6] and [12], PUFs were used for device authentication and unique ID generation. Figure 1 shows the flow for using a PUF for device authentication.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DRAM based Intrinsic Physical Unclonable Functions for System Level Security

Tehranipoor

Karimian

Xiao

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 25th Edition on Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI

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Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) are the result of random uncontrollable variables in the manufacturing process. A PUF can be used as a source of random but reliable data for applications such as generating chip identification and encryption keys. Among various types of PUFs, an intrinsic PUF is the result of a preexisting manufacturing process, does not require any additional circuitry, and is cost effective. In this paper, we introduce an intrinsic PUF based on dynamic random access memories (DRAM). DRAM PUFs can be used in low cost identification applications and also have several advantages over other PUFs such as large input patterns. The DRAM PUF relies on the fact that the capacitor in the DRAM initializes to random values at startup. We demonstrate real DRAM PUFs and describe an experimental setup to test different operating conditions on three DRAMs to achieve the highest reliable results. Finally, we select the most stable bits to use as chip ID using our enrollment algorithm.

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“…are the most common techniques to generate responses from memory chips [1]. Previous works on DRAM PUFs (DPUFs) have focused on: (i) retention-based: writing all cells to '1' and disabling the refresh then waiting for half the cells to discharge and reading cell values [2], [13]- [15], (ii) start-up based: using the start-up values of the cells to generate the secret key as in [16], [17], and (iii) disturbance-based: disturbance caused by rowhammer [18], [19]. The variations in activation latency time have also been used to generate device signatures [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

PreLatPUF: Exploiting DRAM Latency Variations for Generating Robust Device Signatures

et al. 2019

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Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are potential security blocks to generate unique and more secure keys in low-cost cryptographic applications. Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) has been proposed as one of the promising candidates for generating robust keys. Unfortunately, the existing techniques of generating device signatures from DRAM is very slow, destructive (destroy the current data), and disruptive to system operation. In this paper, we propose precharge latency-based PUF (PreLatPUF) that exploits DRAM precharge latency variations to generate signatures. The proposed PreLatPUF is fast, robust, least disruptive, and non-destructive. The silicon results from commercially available DDR3 chips from different manufacturers show that the proposed key generation technique is at least ∼ 1, 192X faster than the existing approaches, while reliably reproducing the key in extreme operating conditions. INDEX TERMS DRAM-PUF, DRAM latency-based PUF, robust key generation.

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Dynamic memory-based physically unclonable function for the generation of unique identifiers and true random numbers

Cited by 48 publications

References 4 publications

D-RaNGe: Using Commodity DRAM Devices to Generate True Random Numbers with Low Latency and High Throughput

D-RaNGe: Using Commodity DRAM Devices to Generate True Random Numbers with Low Latency and High Throughput

DRAM based Intrinsic Physical Unclonable Functions for System Level Security

PreLatPUF: Exploiting DRAM Latency Variations for Generating Robust Device Signatures

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