QUAC-TRNG

This repository provides all necessary files and instructions to reproduce the results of QUAC-TRNG.

Please use the following citation to cite QUAC-TRNG if the repository is useful for you.

Ataberk Olgun, Minesh Patel, A. Giray Yaglikci, Haocong Luo, Jeremie S. Kim, F. Nisa Bostanci, Nandita Vijaykumar, Oguz Ergin, and Onur Mutlu, "QUAC-TRNG: High-Throughput True Random Number Generation Using Quadruple Row Activation in Commodity DRAM Chips", ISCA'21.

Link to QUAC-TRNG's extended version on arXiv

@inproceedings{olgun2022quactrng,
      title={QUAC-TRNG: High-Throughput True Random Number Generation Using Quadruple Row Activation in Commodity DRAM Chips}, 
      author={Ataberk Olgun, Minesh Patel, A. Giray Yaglikci, Haocong Luo, Jeremie S. Kim, F. Nisa Bostanci, Nandita Vijaykumar, Oguz Ergin, and Onur Mutlu},
      year={2021},
      booktitle={ISCA}
}

We implemented QUAC-TRNG using the open-source FPGA-based DRAM characterization infrastructure: DRAM Bender. To run the scripts provided in this repostiory, you need an FPGA setup with DRAM Bender installed.

Please check out the prerequisites and installation instructions in the DRAM Bender repository.

Talks

To learn more about QUAC-TRNG, please refer to the talks and slides below:

Long Talk: SAFARI Live Seminar
SAFARI Live Seminar Slides (pptx) (pdf)

Short Talk: Conference Talk Video
Conference Talk Slides (pptx) (pdf)

Installation Instructions

Assuming you have downloaded the DRAM Bender repository to DBPATH, copy everything provided in this directory to DBPATH/sources/apps/QUAC-TRNG. Then you can use the instructions below to reproduce QUAC-TRNG's results.

Obtain NIST STS

Download the NIST standard test suite (NIST STS) for random number generators using this link. Install it under tools using the instructions provided in the linked repository's README.

After installing NIST STS, QUAC-TRNG/tools/sts should point to the NIST STS executable.

Copy SoftMC_reset to bin/

Run the following command to copy the reset program under bin/ directory.

cp ../ResetBoard/SoftMC_reset bin/

Entropy Tests

To run entropy tests, simply execute the run_ent.py script (you have to execute this in QUAC-TRNG directory):

make -f Makefile.ent  
python3 scripts/run_ent.py <DIMM_NAME> <TEMPERATURE_IN_CELCIUS> <QUAC_ITERATIONS> <ROW_STRIDE>

Example: python3 scripts/run_ent.py hytt04 50 1000 4

This script will output one text file for every tested 4-bit data pattern (variable named placement in run_ent.py). Each line in the text file starts with the starting row id of a DRAM segment, followed by the observed entropy numbers for each bit in the segment.

von Neumann Corrected Bitstreams

This will collect 1 Mb bitstreams from frequently switching bitlines and input them to NIST STS. The script will stop the moment it finds a cell that passes all NIST tests.

make -f Makefile.observe  
python3 scripts/run_vn_nist.py <DIMM_NAME> <TEMPERATURE_IN_CELCIUS>

Example: python3 scripts/run_vn_nist.py hytt04 50

SHA-256 Bitstreams

This section describes how to get the NIST STS results for SHA-256 processed bitstreams. Doing so consists of two steps: 1) finding the DRAM segments with top 10 entropy, 2) generating bitstreams from the top-10-entropy segments and processing them using SHA-256 and performing NIST STS tests.

First, run make -f Makefile.sha.

1- Obtain the entropy distribution to find the desired 4-bit data pattern (refer to "Entropy Tests").
2- Get the segments with max. entropy: python3 scripts/top_ents.py <DIMM_NAME> <PATTERN> <TEMPERATURE>
3- Run the SHA-256 bitstream generator script: python3 scripts/sha_bitstreams.py <DIMM_NAME> <PATTERN> <TEMPERATURE>

CMU-SAFARI / QUAC-TRNG