Evaluation of the Sensitivity of RRAM Cells to Optical Fault Injection Attacks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how TiN/Ti/Al:HfO2/TiN-based RRAM cells in 250 nm CMOS technology are vulnerable to optical fault injection via laser irradiation, demonstrating the feasibility of influencing cell states through targeted laser parameters.

Contribution

It provides a detailed experimental analysis of the sensitivity of RRAM cells to laser-induced faults and identifies key laser parameters affecting injection success.

Findings

Laser irradiation can successfully alter RRAM cell states.

Certain laser parameters significantly influence fault injection success.

Experimental results confirm optical fault injection feasibility on RRAM.

Abstract

Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) is a type of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM). In this paper we investigate the sensitivity of the TiN/Ti/Al:HfO2/TiN-based 1T-1R RRAM cells implemented in a 250 nm CMOS IHP technology to the laser irradiation in detail. Experimental results show the feasibility to influence the state of the cells under laser irradiation, i.e. successful optical Fault Injection. We focus on the selection of the parameters of the laser station and their influence on the success of optical Fault Injections.