True Random Number Generator Based on Multi-State Silicon Nitride Memristor Entropy Sources Combination

摘要

True random number generators (TRNG) are key components in information security systems. Moreover, in the era of the internet of things (IoT), the demands on smaller, faster, simpler and more power efficient TRGN circuits increased. Meeting these requirements, resistance switching devices, used also as resistive memory cells (ReRAMs), are attractive candidates to implement entropy sources due to their inherent stochasticity. In this work, we present a novel design of TRNG hardware based on a silicon nitride memristor. Multi-state currents are utilized as different entropy sources increasing the overall entropy of the circuit. A post-processing of the generated bitstreams was made with a simple Xorshift combinational logic circuit. The robustness of the proposed design is verified with NIST randomness tests.