About the project
Memristors mimic how the brain learns—offering low-cost, secure, and energy-efficient computing. This PhD tackles challenges limiting their adoption, from ageing to variability, to create unforgeable, self-identifying chips.
Memristor is an emerging memory device that can mimic the synaptic function of the brain and exhibit intrinsic characteristics that can be exploited to support the development of secure and resilient electronic systems. This is due to their resilience to side-channel analysis, stochasticity, and low cost. For example, the stochasticity of memory devices can be exploited to build securely identifiable systems. Such systems could create hardware whose identity is encoded into atomic-scale device configurations and, therefore, be practically impossible to forge.
However, several outstanding challenges currently prevent the wider adoption of Memristor technologies for security applications:
- reliability issues related to device ageing and device-to-device variability
- memristors do not come with any standard CMOS support that would be required for developing any novel circuitry that exploits their characteristics
- as such circuits emerge, new comprehensive analysis and security metrics must be devised to benchmark their performance
We aim to tackle these issues that will allow us to deliver a cornerstone for building unforgeable electronic devices that are resilient to side channel analysis and, overall, a step change in our digital economy.
In the first year, you will be trained to build memristor chip prototypes employing our state-of-the-art cleanroom facility. You will investigate the synaptic response of the devices and exploit this response to generate random entropy and design memristor-based identity generators into atomic-scale device configurations that will be impossible to forge.
In the second year, you will conduct a practical evaluation of reliability issues in cryogenic temperature and X-ray radiation. You will investigate the voltage variations and ageing acceleration to devise appropriate mitigation approaches.
In the third year, you will develop application demonstrator hardware-based end-to-end security solutions from the device to the network, which include the key management scheme and state-of-the-art cryptographic APIs for securely authenticating devices remotely and the detection of tampering attempts.
Von Ardenne GmbH (Germany) will be the industrial partner of this project and will provide in-kind contribution similar to the commitment we provide to our collaborative EPSRC-funded SPICA project. The contribution includes:
- utilization of thin film deposition tools: we will make available our advanced thin film deposition equipment for the development and prototyping of memristor devices.
- materials supply: we will supply high-purity semiconductor materials and consumables required for the thin-film deposition.
- technical expertise: our senior engineer technology will provide technical guidance on thin film deposition process optimization.
The School of Electronics and Computer Science is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
