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Hi Zoran and Peter,
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</div>
<div class="">I’m actually interested in the retention time of DRAM cells for fingerprinting purposes (i.e. not for any kind of performance tuning). It turns out that retention time information (such as the distribution of retention times across the cells of
DRAM) can be used to identify the manufacturer of that DRAM (see <a href="http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/PDL-FTP/NVM/dram-retention_isca13.pdf" class="">here</a>, especially Figure 8, for details). The paper cited uses an FPGA implementation to measure the retention
time. In contrast, I’m interested in seeing whether this relationship holds under a traditional setup and how it may then be leveraged to build secure systems that make their hardware (e.g. DRAM) transparent to the user without relying on static information
like the SPD.</div>
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</div>
<div class="">For instance, the CPU may convey to the user during boot: “Your DRAM claims it is made by manufacturer A but it is acting like it is made by manufacturer B. Manufacturer B is known to be susceptible to these hardware trojans, defects, etc.”</div>
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<div class="">This is, of course, a very research oriented project with many strong assumptions, but I’m hoping that it will lead to some interesting results (it is part of my master’s thesis).</div>
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<div class="">Thus, that is why I need to figure out a way to disable the auto-refresh of DRAM ;)</div>
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<div class="">Best,</div>
<div class="">Berj</div>
<div class="">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Mar 24, 2017, at 8:01 AM, Zoran Stojsavljevic <<a href="mailto:zoran.stojsavljevic@gmail.com" class="">zoran.stojsavljevic@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">> Quantify data retention of unpowered memory.</span>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Let us asses/investigate what is the technology of C (capacitor) in the
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/DRAM_Cell_Structure_%28Model_of_Single_Circuit_Cell%29.PNG" class="">
presented diagram</a> in my previous email!</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14px" class="">The capacitor in the stacked capacitor scheme is constructed above the surface of the substrate. The capacitor is constructed from an
<b class=""><i class=""><u class=""><font color="#ff0000" class="">oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) dielectric sandwiched in between two layers of polysilicon plates</font></u></i></b> (the top plate is shared by all DRAM cells in an IC), and its shape can be a rectangle,
a cylinder, or some other more complex shape. There are two basic variations of the stacked capacitor, based on its location relative to the bitline—capacitor-over-bitline (COB) and capacitor-under-bitline (CUB). In a former variation, the capacitor is underneath
the bitline, which is usually made of metal, and the bitline has a polysilicon contact that extends downwards to connect it to the access transistor's source terminal.</span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Well, let us search more (on the ONO - Oxide-Nitride-Oxide dielectric material):</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><u class=""><font color="#ff0000" class=""> </font></u></i></b></span><span style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:15px" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><u class=""><font color="#ff0000" class="">The
commonly used technology for non-volatile Flash memory application consists of a stacked-gate transistor with dual gates. The Oxide-Nitride-Oxide (ONO) stacks constitute the inter-poly dielectric layer between those gates.</font></u></i></b><font color="#333333" class=""> These
top and bottom polycrystalline silicon plates are also known as the control gate (CG) and the floating gate (FG) respectively. During read and write operation of a flash memory device, a high electrical bias needs to be applied through the control gate in
order for electrons to be tunneled through the thin tunnel oxide towards the floating gate which is surrounded by dielectric material.</font></span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Although the same material is used in DRAMs and FLASHes (as in one case for dielectric in Cs, in other channel material for the FETs with dual gates), the design of DRAMs and FLASHes are essentially very
different, as I see. It seems to me that in case of C, ONO is dielectric which holds the capacitor charge, and leaks it through dielectric, in the case of dual gate FETs we have here The Tunnel Effect, which captures some number of free electrons inside the
ONO.</span><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Well... I am also curious (as you, Peter), what will be the retention time, but, as a difference to you, I think that after maximum of 7.8us x 2 some bits (maybe 5% of them, even less, but certainly more
than 0.1%) will be corrupted.</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Now, after the quick analysis/assessment I made, now I understand why all the DRAM companies are trying to pack future DDRs as FLASHes. Never came to me before to investigate this... But there is always
the first time (courtesy of Mr, Chilingirian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). ;-)</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Zoran</span></div>
<div class="">_______</div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 12:19 PM, Peter Stuge <span dir="ltr" class="">
<<a href="mailto:peter@stuge.se" target="_blank" class="">peter@stuge.se</a>></span> wrote:<br class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<span class="gmail-">Zoran Stojsavljevic wrote:<br class="">
> I am not sure what are you really trying to do,<br class="">
<br class="">
</span>Quantify data retention of unpowered memory.<br class="">
<span class="gmail-"><br class="">
<br class="">
> and, mostly WHY you are trying to do what you are trying to do?!<br class="">
<br class="">
</span>To challenge the assumption that data is lost without power.<br class="">
<br class="">
It is an interesting area of research because that assumption - or<br class="">
simplification - is so widespread, although not at all correct.<br class="">
<span class="gmail-HOEnZb"><font color="#888888" class=""><br class="">
<br class="">
//Peter<br class="">
</font></span>
<div class="gmail-HOEnZb">
<div class="gmail-h5"><br class="">
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</blockquote>
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