Low Power Memory/Memristor Devices and Systems

This reprint focusses on achieving low-power computation using memristive devices. The topic was designed as a convenient reference point: it contains a mix of techniques starting from the fundamental manufacturing of memristive devices all the way to applications such as physically unclonable functions, and also covers perspectives on, e.g., in-memory computing, which is inextricably linked with emerging memory devices such as memristors. Finally, the reprint contains a few articles representing how other communities (from typical CMOS design to photonics) are fighting on their own fronts in the quest towards low-power computation, as a comparison with the memristor literature. We hope that readers will enjoy discovering the articles within

STT-MTJ-based TRNG with on-the-fly temperature/current variation compensation

International audienceA hardware True Random Number Generator (TRNG) yields random numbers from a physical process. Traditionally, such devices are based on statistically random signals such as thermal noise or other quantum phenomena. In this paper we propose an innovative TRNG design using a Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic Tunnel Junction (STT-MTJ) device. We exploit the stochastic nature of the MTJ device switching, and perform on-the-fly temperature/current variation compensation. We show that the proposed solution keeps up with environmental changes and generates random sequences with high probability