CN110414276B

CN110414276B - Encryption method for electronic component

Info

Publication number: CN110414276B
Application number: CN201810390831.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 周怜秀; 施秉嘉; 周坤亿; 林鸿维; 王佳文; 徐治旸; 许文朋
Original assignee: United Microelectronics Corp
Current assignee: United Microelectronics Corp
Priority date: 2018-04-27
Filing date: 2018-04-27
Publication date: 2021-05-18
Anticipated expiration: 2038-04-27
Also published as: CN110414276A

Abstract

The invention provides an encryption method of an electronic element, firstly, an electronic element is provided, the electronic element comprises a plurality of transistors which are arranged in an array, any specific area of the electronic element is set as a measuring area, the relation between the voltage and the digit of each transistor in the measuring area is measured and is sequentially arranged into a voltage-digit number series, and the voltage-digit number series is corresponding to a cipher table and generates a group of ciphers.

Description

Encryption method for electronic component

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of electronic elements, in particular to a method for generating a corresponding password and encrypting the password aiming at an entity electronic element.

Background

With the development of science and technology, protection of confidential information such as the proprietary technology of individuals or company groups is also more important. Therefore, various encryption schemes are continuously being studied to prevent various core technologies from being stolen or copied by others.

Encryption techniques, which were primarily applied to software, are also gradually beginning to be applied to hardware. For example, some electronic components, such as a memory board, are connected to another encrypted circuit board, and only after the password is inputted to the encrypted circuit board and the verification is passed, the steps of reading and writing the contents accessed by the memory board can be performed.

However, the password generated in the encryption step is not only required to be randomly generated, but also can be easily forgotten by a user (such as an individual or a company group) if the password generated each time is a random number, and data loss is caused because the user cannot find the password without any trace when trying to retrieve the password.

Therefore, an encryption method with certain security and certain regularity is needed. The encryption mode can lead the user to trace the password when finding the password, but is not easy to crack the password by other people.

Disclosure of Invention

The encryption mode of the electronic element provided by the invention utilizes the unique physical characteristics of the electronic element as the basis for setting the password. For example, the voltage-digit distribution curve measured by each non-volatile memory (non-volatile memory) is different, so that the password is formulated according to the relationship between the voltage and the digit by matching with the password table. The password has the characteristics of uniqueness and difficult cracking, and has certain regularity for the password of the user, so that the user can find the password easily when the password is lost.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a voltage-to-bit diagram of a set of non-volatile memories provided by applicants.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a method for converting a voltage-to-bit sequence into a password according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a method for converting a voltage-to-bit sequence into a password according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Reference numerals

100 voltage-digit array

200 cipher table

200A cipher table

300 second password

300A secondary password

Detailed Description

In order to make the present invention more comprehensible to those skilled in the art, preferred embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

For convenience of explanation, the drawings are only schematic to facilitate understanding of the present invention, and the detailed proportions thereof may be adjusted according to design requirements. The above and below relationships between the relative components in the figures are described, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the relative positions of the objects can be reversed to present the same components, and all should fall within the scope of the present disclosure, which is described in the specification.

The technology described in the invention relates to an encryption mode of an electronic element. Further, the present invention relates to an encryption scheme applied to electronic components (e.g., devices including transistors) of actual products, rather than to software in a computer system. Therefore, in the initial stage of the present invention, an electronic component is provided. For example, a non-volatile memory comprised of a plurality of transistor arrays may be provided. The structure of the non-volatile memory is well known in the art and will not be described in detail herein.

When a certain voltage (Vt) is applied to the non-volatile memory, the corresponding bit number (bit) can be measured and plotted as a graph according to the relationship between the voltage and the bit number. Referring also to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a voltage-to-bit graph of a set of non-volatile memories provided by the applicant, wherein the horizontal axis represents voltage (in volts) and the vertical axis represents bit, for example, the number of bits at voltage of 0.6 volts is about 100, and the number of bits at voltage of 0.8 volts is more than 10000. Generally, nonvolatile memories have several characteristics, first, a voltage-bit graph drawn according to voltage and bit is not as equal for each different nonvolatile memory. That is, each different non-volatile memory will have a unique voltage-to-bit table. Furthermore, according to the experimental results of the applicant, when the environment changes, for example, when the temperature changes, the voltage-digit graph does not change much for the same nonvolatile memory, and referring to fig. 1, the different voltage-digit curves plotted according to different temperatures (e.g., c-40 c, 25 c and 80 c) are very similar. Therefore, the voltage-digit relation measured under different environments is approximately equal, that is, the actions of generating the password or retrieving the password by the user are not affected.

In addition, according to the experimental results of the applicant, another characteristic of the nonvolatile memory is that the voltage-bit curve is not affected even after a plurality of read/write/erase steps because the voltage-bit curve is affected little after a plurality of data access and/or erase cycles.

The manner in which the present invention generates a password using a voltage-digit graph of an electronic component will be described. Referring to fig. 2, fig. 2 shows a method for converting a voltage-bit sequence into a password according to an embodiment of the invention. First, after a voltage-digit curve is obtained by measuring an electronic device, such as a nonvolatile memory, a specific segment of the voltage-digit curve is captured as a segment for setting a password. More specifically, taking the voltage-to-bit graph shown in fig. 1 as an example, the voltage-to-bit graph can be regarded as a graph formed by a plurality of coordinates, wherein the horizontal axis is, for example, voltage (Vt), and the vertical axis is, for example, bit number (bits), and coordinate data of a specific segment is extracted according to the expected password length. For example, if the user needs to generate a set of 10-digit password, the first 10 sets of coordinate data, the last 10 sets of coordinate data, or any other suitable 10 sets of coordinate data in the voltage-digit graph can be captured according to the habit of the user, which should not be construed as a limitation of the invention. In addition, since a set of electronic devices such as a non-volatile memory often includes many arrays, the number of transistors may be thousands, and in order to obtain simpler arrays, a specific region may be used to measure the voltage-to-bit relationship, such as a measurement region, where the measurement region may be any row, any column, or any specific region in the array of the electronic devices. As shown in FIG. 2, N sets of coordinates have been extracted, sequentially arranged from set 1 (including bit0 on the vertical axis and Vt1 on the horizontal axis) to set N (including bit on the vertical axis and VtN on the horizontal axis). Wherein the data shown in the 1 st set of coordinates represents that the number of bits stored in the nonvolatile memory is 0 when the applied voltage is 1 volt. Numbers for other coordinates, and so on. It should be noted that the coordinate data shown in fig. 2 are only examples for convenience of illustration, and do not fully represent the actual measured voltage versus bit number coordinate. The coordinate values actually obtained vary depending on the electronic component.

As shown in fig. 2, after a certain number of coordinates are captured in the voltage-to-bit graph, the coordinates are arranged in a certain order, for example, the number of bits is arranged in an increasing order, to form a voltage-to-bit array 100. Please note that the present invention is not limited to be arranged in a manner of increasing the number of bits, and can be arranged in other suitable orders, which is not limited to the present invention. After the voltage-digit array 100 is obtained, a code table 200 is provided, wherein the code table 200 is commonly established by users or companies thereof, and may have a certain rule or present a random number arrangement. The code may include numbers, letters, or special symbols. The password table is only known to the user or to a specific person who knows the rules for making the password. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, each Vt (voltage) in the code table 200 corresponds to a number, and in the present embodiment, each number is simply incremented from 0, 1, 2, … to n (where n is a positive integer). Then, the coordinate values in the voltage-digit array 100 are compared with a password table one by one to obtain a set of secondary passwords 300. For the present embodiment, the first four sets of coordinates of the voltage-bit array 100 are, for example, (bit0, Vt1), (bit1, Vt2), (bit2, Vt1), (bit3, Vt3), and the number corresponding to Vt1 in the code table is 0, the number corresponding to Vt2 is 1, and the number corresponding to Vt3 is 2. Thus, by comparing the numbers represented by each Vt, the first four digits of the resulting secondary password 300 are 0102. The secondary password 300 obtained in this way will generate different secondary passwords 300 according to different electronic components.

It is understood that the above-mentioned password table 200 can be composed of not only increasing number sequences, but also numbers of the password table can be arranged in increasing, decreasing or random numbers in other embodiments, and even the password table is not only composed of numbers, but also can be composed of English letters, special symbols or combinations thereof. Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 shows a method for converting a voltage-bit sequence into a password according to another embodiment of the invention. In FIG. 3, another set of secondary codes 300A is formed by matching the same voltage-to-bit sequence 100 with another code table 200A. The code table 200A includes numbers, english letters and special symbols, and shows a regular arrangement of random numbers. For example, the first four sets of coordinates of the voltage-bit number array 100 are still (bit0, Vt1), (bit1, Vt2), (bit2, Vt1), (bit3, Vt3), but the alphabet for Vt1 in the code table is A, the symbol for Vt2 is @, and the number for Vt3 is 5. Thus, the first four digits of the resulting secondary password 300A, in contrast to the numbers, letters, or symbols represented by each Vt, is A @ A5.

Subsequently, the obtained secondary password 300 or the secondary password 300A is written into a circuit board, and the electronic component is connected with the circuit board. When anyone needs to operate, read, write, erase the information stored in the electronic device, he must input the password into the circuit board, so that the password is correct and the electronic device can be operated after the verification. The technical contents of this part related to the connection of the circuit board and the verification by the password belong to the known technology in the art, and are not described herein.

The password obtained by the method of the invention can generate respective unique passwords according to different electronic elements, and is not easy to be influenced by factors such as environment and the like. In addition, because the conversion of the cipher table is needed in the process of generating the cipher, the protection of the encryption is further enhanced. Form a password which can not be easily broken by others. On the other hand, the user or other persons who know the rule for making the password can easily guess the password when the user owns the password table, so as to avoid forgetting the password. Therefore, the utility model has the advantages of safety and convenience.

The above description is only for the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and all equivalent changes and modifications made within the scope of the present invention should be covered by the present invention.

Claims

1. An encryption method for an electronic component, comprising:

providing an electronic element, wherein the electronic element comprises a memory unit consisting of a plurality of transistors arranged in an array;

setting a specific memory cell area of the electronic element as a measuring area;

measuring the relation between the voltage of each transistor in the measuring area and the corresponding digit of the transistor, and arranging the transistors into a voltage-digit sequence in sequence;

mapping the voltage in the voltage-digit array to a password table, and generating a group of passwords based on the voltage-digit array and the password table; and

and writing the group of passwords into a circuit board connected with the electronic element, wherein the operation of the stored information of the electronic element is allowed under the condition that the group of passwords is input into the circuit board.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cryptogram comprises a plurality of values, and each value is sequentially in an increasing order.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the cryptogram comprises a plurality of values, and each value is sequentially in a descending order.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the cryptogram comprises a plurality of values, and each value is sequentially represented as a random number arrangement.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the measurement region is any column of the array of electronic devices.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the measurement region is any row in the array of electronic devices.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the voltage-bit rows comprises a voltage value and a bit, and the bits of the voltage-bit rows are sequentially arranged from small to large.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic device comprises a non-volatile memory.