Impact of Laser Attacks on the Switching Behavior of RRAM Devices

Daniel Arumí,Mireia Bargalló González,Salvador Manich,Rosa Rodríguez-Montañés,Francesca Campabadal,Víctor Montilla,Álvaro Gómez-Pau,David Hernández

doi:10.3390/electronics9010200

Abstract

The ubiquitous use of critical and private data in electronic format requires reliable and secure embedded systems for IoT devices. In this context, RRAMs (Resistive Random Access Memories) arises as a promising alternative to replace current memory technologies. However, their suitability for this kind of application, where the integrity of the data is crucial, is still under study. Among the different typology of attacks to recover information of secret data, laser attack is one of the most common due to its simplicity. Some preliminary works have already addressed the influence of laser tests on RRAM devices. Nevertheless, the results are not conclusive since different responses have been reported depending on the circuit under testing and the features of the test. In this paper, we have conducted laser tests on individual RRAM devices. For the set of experiments conducted, the devices did not show faulty behaviors. These results contribute to the characterization of RRAMs and, together with the rest of related works, are expected to pave the way for the development of suitable countermeasures against external attacks.

Highlights

RRAM is one of the most promising candidates among emerging memory technologies due to their interesting features in terms of area, low power, frequency of operation, endurance, data retention, and CMOS compatibility [1,2,3]
The laser pulse does not have any noticeable impact on the resistive state of the RRAM regardless of the power source and the resistance state of the device
We investigated the effect of a laser attack on single RRAMs

Summary

Introduction

RRAM (resistive random access memory) is one of the most promising candidates among emerging memory technologies due to their interesting features in terms of area, low power, frequency of operation, endurance, data retention, and CMOS compatibility [1,2,3]. An RRAM is a two-terminal device usually composed of an electrode/dielectric/electrode stack structure [4,5]. For an RRAM in a pristine state, an initial operation (forming process) is typically necessary to generate the CF. Once this CF is formed, an RRAM can reversibly switch between a high resistance state (HRS) and a low resistance state (LRS). This reversible switching behavior is obtained by applying voltage pulses between the electrodes. The switching operation from LRS to HRS is called the RESET process. The main concerns for the massive commercialization of RRAMs are their inherent stochastic features such as probabilistic switching [6], inter and intra

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