On the Characterization of Jitter in Ring Oscillators using Allan variance for True Random Number Generator Applications - Grenoble Alpes Cybersecurity Institute Access content directly
Conference Papers Year : 2022

On the Characterization of Jitter in Ring Oscillators using Allan variance for True Random Number Generator Applications

Abstract

The description of the physical noise source is of utmost importance for any TRNG certification. In the case of ring oscillators, Allan variance is a reliable and comprehensive tool which enables the distinction between the jitter coming from flicker noise (autocorrelated) and from thermal noise (random). In this paper, we realize measurements directly on the analog source of numerous TRNG structures: a ring oscillator. Our data, along with evidence from the literature, indicates the presence of a third noise source. The quantization noise has not been so far taken into consideration, but is unquestionably present in all TRNG reliant on jitter. Its importance is key to an accurate estimation of thermal noise contribution, which can be shadowed by it. Measurements presented in this paper show that insufficient sampling (i.e. higher quantization noise) can lead to an overestimation of jitter coming from thermal noise and therefore an overestimation of the calculated entropy. The latter is the only type of noise considered reliable in currently existing ring oscillator-based TRNG models. As a rule of thumb, three orders of magnitude between the sampling and the sampled signal are necessary in order to determine the thermal noise jitter correctly.
Embargoed file
Embargoed file
Embargoed file
0 1 29
Year Month Jours
Avant la publication
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Embargoed file
0 1 29
Year Month Jours
Avant la publication
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Embargoed file
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Please log in to request access to the document

Dates and versions

cea-04454877 , version 1 (13-02-2024)

Identifiers

Cite

Licinius-Pompiliu Benea, Mikael Carmona, Florian Pebay-Peyroula, Romain Wacquez. On the Characterization of Jitter in Ring Oscillators using Allan variance for True Random Number Generator Applications. 2022 25th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD), Aug 2022, Maspalomas, Spain. pp.534-538, ⟨10.1109/DSD57027.2022.00077⟩. ⟨cea-04454877⟩
4 View
1 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More