Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States.
Nano Lett. 2017 Aug 9;17(8):4976-4981. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02118. Epub 2017 Jul 7.
With the growing adoption of interconnected electronic devices in consumer and industrial applications, there is an increasing demand for robust security protocols when transmitting and receiving sensitive data. Toward this end, hardware true random number generators (TRNGs), commonly used to create encryption keys, offer significant advantages over software pseudorandom number generators. However, the vast network of devices and sensors envisioned for the "Internet of Things" will require small, low-cost, and mechanically flexible TRNGs with low computational complexity. These rigorous constraints position solution-processed semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as leading candidates for next-generation security devices. Here, we demonstrate the first TRNG using static random access memory (SRAM) cells based on solution-processed SWCNTs that digitize thermal noise to generate random bits. This bit generation strategy can be readily implemented in hardware with minimal transistor and computational overhead, resulting in an output stream that passes standardized statistical tests for randomness. By using solution-processed semiconducting SWCNTs in a low-power, complementary architecture to achieve TRNG, we demonstrate a promising approach for improving the security of printable and flexible electronics.
随着消费和工业应用中互联电子设备的日益普及，在传输和接收敏感数据时，人们对强大的安全协议的需求也在不断增加。为此，硬件真随机数生成器（TRNG）通常用于创建加密密钥，相对于软件伪随机数生成器具有显著优势。然而，对于“物联网”中设想的庞大设备和传感器网络，需要具有低计算复杂度、小型、低成本和机械灵活的 TRNG。这些严格的限制使溶液处理的半导体单壁碳纳米管（SWCNT）成为下一代安全设备的首选。在这里，我们展示了第一个基于溶液处理的 SWCNT 的静态随机存取存储器（SRAM）单元的 TRNG，该单元将热噪声数字化以生成随机位。这种位生成策略可以很容易地在硬件中实现，只需最小的晶体管和计算开销，从而产生通过随机标准统计测试的输出流。通过在低功耗、互补架构中使用溶液处理的半导体 SWCNT 来实现 TRNG，我们展示了一种提高可打印和灵活电子产品安全性的有前途的方法。
