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posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 29 2019, @08:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the online-anonymity-to-go-POOF! dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Every transistor has a unique quantum fingerprint

We might imagine that electric current flows as a smooth, even stream of electrons through our electronics devices, but at the quantum scale the flow of electric current might be more accurately pictured as a bubbling brook containing many tiny ripples. These ripples can be caused by single-electron effects, which arise due to the repulsion among electrons confined in very small spaces, such as trap sites in transistors. Single-electron effects can lead to tiny changes in the current-voltage characteristics of these devices.

As trap sites are basically tiny defects that are randomly distributed in an uncontrollable way during fabrication, the number, location, and energy levels of trap sites differ for every transistor. As a result, single-electron effects lead to a unique modification in the current-voltage characteristics, effectively giving each transistor a unique "fingerprint."

Recently, researchers have been investigating how these quantum fingerprints might one day be used as an inexpensive form of ID to protect users' personal information for technologies in the emerging network of internet-connected devices known as the Internet of Things.

In a new paper published in Applied Physics Letters, physicists T. Tanamoto and Y. Nishi at the Toshiba Corporation in Kawasaki, Japan, and K. Ono at RIKEN in Saitama, Japan, have demonstrated that single-electron effects may be detected by image-recognition algorithms and used for computer chip identification and security.

"So far, no widespread application exists for single-electron devices," Tanamoto told Phys.org. "Our research opens a different way of using the single-electron effect: as a security device. The importance of security is increasing day by day."

As the physicists explain, the fingerprint of an electronic device can be thought of as a physically unclonable function (PUF). Like a human fingerprint, PUFs are based on unique, naturally occurring physical variations and cannot be transferred to other devices. In addition, PUFs retain their key features throughout the lifetime of the device, despite some degradation due to aging effects.


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  • (Score: 2) by Acabatag on Tuesday July 30 2019, @12:36AM

    by Acabatag (2885) on Tuesday July 30 2019, @12:36AM (#872932)

    I have thousands of 2N3904 transistors. And their mate, the 2N3906 transistor.

    At some point, maybe each one can be used as an authenticating token.

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