Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Committee Chair
Aleksandar Milenkovic
Committee Member
Laurie Joiner
Committee Member
Timothy Boykin
Committee Member
Aubrey Beal
Research Advisor
Biswajit Ray
Subject(s)
Flash memories (Computers)-Effect of radiation on, Static random access memory--Effect of radiation on
Abstract
Radiation effects in semiconductor devices have gained great traction in recent years due to an exponential growth in space exploration. The harsh conditions of space, devoid of the atmosphere and Earth's magnetic field, pose considerable challenges to electronic systems due to ionizing radiation exposure. While radiation-hardened (rad-hard) components are continually under development, they often lag several technology generations compared to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts. Notably, rad-hard memories, particularly in terms of capacity (megabytes vs. terabytes) and cost, fall short compared to regular COTS memories. This underscores the compelling need to evaluate the radiation tolerance of COTS memories. This dissertation focuses on ionizing radiation effects on NAND flash and Static Random Access Memory (SRAM). We explore the total-ionizing-dose (TID) effects on 3D NAND by studying the bit error pattern with TID. We find that electrical noise contributes to a significant percentage of bit-errors and that radiation causes noise to increase during memory read operation. We present a powerful mitigation strategy to counteract radiation-induced noise increase by pre-programming factory-erase memory blocks before deployment. Furthermore, we investigate TID effects on the power-up characteristics of COTS-SRAM memories. The SRAM power-up state, serving as a unique digital fingerprint or physical unclonable function (PUF) for device authentication, undergoes significant alterations due to ionizing radiation exposure. This may lead to authentication failures in the space and other harsh environment. To protect SRAM PUF from ionizing radiation, we propose a robust mitigation strategy involving the storage of an appropriate data pattern during irradiation. Lastly, we explore ionizing radiation as a potential attack vector posing a significant security threat to SRAM-based computing systems. Our research uncovers data imprinting effects caused by ionizing radiation, which could be exploited by adversaries for data leakage. Additionally, ionizing radiation induces a substantial reduction in SRAM data remanence time, and we present this as a mitigation strategy against security attacks relying on SRAM data remanence.
Recommended Citation
Surendranathan, Umeshwarnath, "Exploring the impact of ionizing radiation on security and reliability in modern semiconductor memories" (2024). Dissertations. 410.
https://louis.uah.edu/uah-dissertations/410