Investigation of Commercial Off-The-Shelf ReRAM Modules for Use as Runtime-Accessible TRNG
Tolga Arul, Nico Mexis, Aleena Elsa George, Florian Frank, Nikolaos Athanasios Anagnostopoulos, Stefan Katzenbeisser · 2024
In this work, we analyse Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM) modules for their suitability to implement a novel runtime-accessible True Random Number Generator (TRNG). For this purpose, modules from two different manufacturers (Adesto Technologies and Fujitsu) were tested, which exhibited distinct characteristics under different conditions. If suitable parameters are selected, the proposed TRNG can successfully pass all the tests of both the NIST SP800-22 Statistical Test Suite and the NIST SP800-90B Entropy Source Test Suite at a wide range of temperatures. At the same time, the TRNG achieves a throughput of at least 28 bits per second under adverse temperature conditions and approximately 51 bits per second at room temperature, in the worst case. Therefore, the performance of the TRNG is sufficient for many practical applications such as security protocols for the Internet of Things (IoT) and in-vehicle networks [1], [2].