Large quantities of random numbers are crucial in a wide range of applications. We have recently demonstrated that perpendicular nanopillar magnetic tunnel junctions (pMTJs) can produce true random bits when actuated with short pulses. However, our implementation used high-end and expensive electronics, such as a high bandwidth arbitrary waveform generator and analog-to-digital converter, and was limited to relatively low data rates. Here, we significantly increase the speed of true random number generation (TRNG) of our stochastic actuated pMTJs (SMART-pMTJs) using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), demonstrating the generation of over 1012 bits at rates exceeding 10Mb/s. The resulting bitstreams pass the NIST Statistical Test Suite for randomness with only one XOR operation. In addition to a hundred-fold reduction in the setup cost and a thousand-fold increase in bitrate, the advancement includes simplifying and optimizing random bit generation with a custom-designed analog daughter board to interface an FPGA and SMART-pMTJ. The resulting setup further enables FPGA at-speed processing of MTJ data for stochastic modeling and cryptography.
@article{arxiv.2404.14307,
title = {One Trillion True Random Bits Generated with a Field Programmable Gate Array Actuated Magnetic Tunnel Junction},
author = {Andre Dubovskiy and Troy Criss and Ahmed Sidi El Valli and Laura Rehm and Andrew D. Kent and Andrew Haas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.14307},
year = {2024}
}