News


IMEC visits IMSE
IMEC visits IMSE to explore collaboration opportunities after its arrival in Spain

The visit consisted of a first round of presentations of the different entities and a subsequent tour of the centre's laboratories.
October 28, 2024

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IMSE Publication future PUFs
Resistant to temperature changes: this will be the future of PUFs

From the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla (IMSE-CNM) we are pleased to announce the recent publication by the journal IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers of the article entitled "A Comprehensive Approach to Improving the Thermal Reliability of RTN-Based PUFs" to which researchers from our center have contributed.
October 8, 2024

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2024 European Researchers Night
Post-quantum cryptography, present at the 2024 European Researchers' Night through IMSE

Last Friday, September 27, the European Researchers' Night took place, an annual meeting with Science organized by the European Commission that seeks to bring research closer to citizens in a practical and fun way. The IMSE talk attracted young and old people interested in learning about the benefits of post-quantum cryptography.
September 30, 2024

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IMSE researchers biodiversity conservation
Artificial Intelligence to take care of our fauna

Researchers from the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla (IMSE-CNM) and the Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD) have joined forces to carry out a study on biodiversity conservation, objective number 15 of the Agenda de Desarrollo Sostenible. This research, which began in 2022 within the framework of the LIFE project and is currently being carried out within the ULTIMATE project.
September 26, 2024

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IMSE graduate responsible ams osram
An IMSE graduate is among those responsible for the innovation of medical imaging in our country

Rafael Serrano-Gotarredonda, who completed his PhD at IMSE (2007), will be the new head of a team designing integrated circuits for medical imaging that is to be created by the multinational ams-Osram in Valencia as a global solutions centre for the company.
September 11, 2024

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IMSE Summer Course UIMP
IMSE members talk about Data Science in Santander

Piedad Brox and Adrián Estrada attended this event with innovation to contribute their vision on one of the key disciplines in scientific research.
August 30, 2024

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PREVIOUS EVENTS & NEWS

New Director of the IMSE-CNM


IMSE researcher Teresa Serrano Gotarredona has been appointed as the new Director of the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla.

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Education at IMSE


- Doctoral Studies
- Master Studies
- Degree Studies
- Final Degree Projects
- Internships

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Recent publications


A Comprehensive Approach to Improving the Thermal Reliability of RTN-Based PUFs
F. de los Santos-Prieto, F.J. Rubio-Barbero, R. Castro-López, E. Roca and F.V. Fernández
Journal Paper · IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers (Early Access), 2024
IEEE    ISSN: 1549-8328
abstract      doi      

Silicon Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have emerged as a promising solution for generating cryptographic keys in low-cost resource-constrained devices. A PUF is expected to be reliable, meaning that its response bits should remain consistent each time the corresponding challenges are queried. Unfortunately, the stability of these challenge-response pairs (CRPs) can be seriously eroded by environmental factors like temperature variations and the aging of the integrated circuits implementing the PUF. Several approaches, including bit masking, bit selection techniques, and error-correcting codes, have been proposed to obtain a reliable PUF operation in the face of temperature variations. As for aging, a new kind of aging-resilient silicon PUF has been reported that uses the time-varying phenomenon known as Random Telegraph Noise (RTN) as the underlying entropy source. Although this type of PUF preserves its reliability well when aged, it is not immune to the impact of temperature variations. The work presented here shows that it is possible to improve the thermal reliability of RTN-based PUFs with a proper combination of (a) a novel optimization-based bit selection technique, that is also applicable to other types of PUFs based on differential measurements; and (b) a temperature-aware tuning of the entropy-harvesting function.

A Review of Ising Machines Implemented in Conventional and Emerging Technologies
T. Zhang, Q. Tao, B. Liu, A. Grimaldi, E. Raimondo, M. Jiménez, M.J. Avedillo, J. Núñez, B. Linares-Barranco, T. Serrano-Gotarredona, G. Finocchio and Jie Han
Journal Paper · IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology (Early Access), 2024
IEEE    ISSN: 1536-125X
abstract      doi      

Ising machines have received growing interest as efficient and hardware-friendly solvers for combinatorial optimization problems (COPs). They search for the absolute or approximate ground states of the Ising model with a proper annealing process. In contrast to Ising machines built with superconductive or optical circuits, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) Ising machines offer inexpensive fabrication, high scalability, and easy integration with mainstream semiconductor chips. As low-energy and CMOS-compatible emerging technologies, spintronics and pase-transition devices offer functionalities that can enhance the scalability and sampling performance of Ising machines. In this article, we survey various approaches in the process flow for solving COPs using CMOS, hybrid CMOSspintronic, and phase-transition devices. First, the methods for formulating COPs as Ising problems and embedding Ising formulations to the topology of the Ising machine are reviewed. Then, Ising machines are classified by their underlying operational principles and reviewed from a perspective of hardware implementation. CMOS solutions are advantageous with denser connectivity, whereas hybrid CMOS-spintronic and phase-transition device-based solutions show great potential in energy efficiency and high performance. Finally, the challenges and prospects are discussed for the Ising formulation, embedding process, and implementation of Ising machines.

Hardware-Efficient Configurable Ring-Oscillator-Based Physical Unclonable Function/True Random Number Generator Module for Secure Key Management
S. Sánchez-Solano, L.F. Rojas-Muñoz, M.C. Martínez-Rodríguez and P. Brox
Journal Paper · Sensors, vol. 24, no. 17, article 5674, 2024
MDPI    ISSN: 1424-8220
abstract      doi      

The use of physical unclonable functions (PUFs) linked to the manufacturing process of the electronic devices supporting applications that exchange critical data over the Internet has made these elements essential to guarantee the authenticity of said devices, as well as the confidentiality and integrity of the information they process or transmit. This paper describes the development of a configurable PUF/TRNG module based on ring oscillators (ROs) that takes full advantage of the structure of modern programmable devices offered by Xilinx 7 Series families. The proposed architecture improves the hardware efficiency with two main objectives. On the one hand, we perform an exhaustive statistical characterization of the results derived from the exploitation of RO configurability. On the other hand, we undertake the development of a new version of the module that requires a smaller amount of resources while considerably increasing the number of output bits compared to other proposals previously reported in the literature. The design as a highly parameterized intellectual property (IP) module connectable through a standard interface to a soft- or hard-core general-purpose processor greatly facilitates its integration into embedded solutions while accelerating the validation and characterization of this element on the same electronic device that implements it. The studies carried out reveal adequate values of reliability, uniqueness, and unpredictability when the module acts as a PUF, as well as acceptable levels of randomness and entropy when it acts as a true random number generator (TRNG). They also illustrate the ability to obfuscate and recover identifiers or cryptographic keys of up to 4096 bits using an implementation of the PUF/TRNG module that requires only an array of 4×4 configurable logic blocks (CLBs) to accommodate the RO bank.

Full Open-Source Implementation of an Academic RISC-V on FPGA
P. Navarro-Torrero, M.C. Martínez-Rodríguez, A. Barriga-Barros and P. Brox
Conference · 2024 XVI Congreso de Tecnología, Aprendizaje y Enseñanza de la Electrónica (TAEE)
abstract      doi      

In alignment with the ethos of openness and democracy inherent in the RISC-V architecture, our research endeavors have been directed towards the utilization of open-source tools for the implementation of a simple but didactic RISC-V processor denoted as ASTIRV32I. The paper discusses the design strategies, memory mapping, physical verification procedures, and performance evaluation of the ASTIRV32I processor. Furthermore, it highlights the successful validation of the implemented design through the execution of fundamental algorithms, exemplifying the practicality and viability of the RISC-V-based processor design and serving as a proof-of-concept for open-source FPGA design.

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What we do


Our main area of specialization is the design of CMOS analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and their use in different application contexts such as wireless communications, data conversion, smart imagers & vision sensors, biomedical devices, cybersecurity, neuromorphic computing and space technologies.

The IMSE-CNM staff consists of approximately one hundred people, including scientists and support personnel. IMSE-CNM employees are involved in advancing scientific knowledge, designing high level scientific-technical solutions and in technology transfer.

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