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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

14. Security of Emerging Memory Chips

Authors : Farah Ferdaus, Md Tauhidur Rahman

Published in: Emerging Topics in Hardware Security

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Memory chips play a critical role in performance and energy because they are the fundamental bottlenecks in computing systems. Several emerging memory chips such as Magneto-resistive Random-Access Memory (MRAM), Resistive RAM (ReRAM), Phase-Change Memory (PCM), and Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) have been proposed to replace mainstream memory chips to overcome the limitations of the existing memory chips such as high leakage current, a large amount of energy consumption, lack of scalability, etc. These emerging memory chips possess several advantageous features such as non-volatility, high density, scalability, long endurance, ultralow-power operation, read/write current asymmetry, high write current, etc. However, some of these new exclusive features in the emerging memory device and architecture may introduce new vulnerabilities that can be detrimental for security and safety. This chapter will focus on the security vulnerabilities of emerging non-volatile memory chips and discuss the existing countermeasures to make the computing systems robust against various attacks.

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previous chapter Firmware Protection

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The cells that are connected to the same row and column(s) of the selected cells during a write operation are known as partially selected cells.

The slower growth rate of the cell resistance with time is known as resistance drift.

Hamming Weight (HW) counts the number of 1’s in a string of bits [51].

Internal resistance (R _int) is modeled as the equivalent resistance between the local ground of one address of one bank and the local ground of another address of another bank.

Attack density, Δ, is defined as the ratio of the number of writes to the most frequently written line to the total number of writes within a given period [72, 73].

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Title: Security of Emerging Memory Chips
Authors: Farah Ferdaus
Md Tauhidur Rahman
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Emerging Topics in Hardware Security
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64447-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-64448-2

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64448-2_14

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