Design of a TRNG in 600-nm IGZO-TFT FlexICs for Secure IoT Applications

As the demand for secure Internet of Things (IoT) devices increases, the need for hardware security solutions has become more critical, particularly in applications with strict power and area constraints. Thin-film transistors (TFTs) are an emerging technology, that enables the integration of complex circuits onto thin, flexible substrates offering both low-cost manufacturing and compatibility with large-area system implementations. This paper, presents, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first true random number generator (TRNG) based on jittered oscillator sampling, implemented in 600 nm Indium-Gallium-Zinc-Oxide (IGZO) TFT flexible integrated circuits (FlexICs) technology.The proposed TRNG achieves a throughput of 1.33 Mbits/s, an energy consumption of 4.68 nJ/bit, and occupies an area of 0.920 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>. The TRNG showed promising results by passing 8 NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) randomness tests under nominal conditions. This opens new opportunities for embedding security primitives in flexible electronics, allowing for integration of hardware security in wearable electronics, biomedical devices, communication tags and other applications.