Research

The activities of the Electronics and Measurement Research Group concern different subjects involving Analog and Digital Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Electronic Measurement, Reliability, Applied Mathematics and, for the electrochemical sensors analysis and development, Physics and Chemistry.

Analysis and Design of Electronic Circuits Based on Nonlinear Dynamical Systems

The research activities are organized towards the analysis and design of analog and digital electronic circuits implementing nonlinear dynamical systems, with a special reference to the following research lines:

  1. Implementation of Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) to be used as cryptographic primitives for  challenge/response chip authentication;
  2. Generation of random binary sequences for cryptographic applications;
  3. Generation of analog stochastic signals for the statistical testing of ADCs, electronic circuits and instrumentation.

Detailed Research Activities

The research activities focus on the following topics:

  • Efficient implementation of 1D chaotic maps with full-custom or semi-custom (FPGAs) digital circuits, for the definition of cryptographic pseudo-random number generator;
  • Theoretical analysis and design techniques to enhance the entropy of random number generator circuits;
  • Design of analog electronic circuits implementing cryptographic true-random number generators based on chaotic dynamical systems (with analysis of the nonidealities introduced by the chip fabrication process tolerances and mismatches);
  • Theoretical analysis of the dynamics in nonlinear perturbed systems;
  • Generation of analog stochastic signals for the statistical testing of ADCs, electronic circuits and instrumentation;
  • Statistical analysis and design of digital circuits implementing Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) based on ring-oscillators;
  • Analysis and design of analog electronic circuits implementing Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) based on nonlinear systems derived from Cellular Neural Networks (CNNs).

IEEE keywords

Nonlinear Circuits; Cryptography; Random Number Generation; Nonlinear Dynamical Systems; Chaos; Cellular Neural Networks; Mixed Analog Digital Integrated Circuits; Authentication; Testing; Stochastic Systems; Field Programmable Gate Arrays.

ERC keywords

PE7_2 Electrical and electronic engineering: semiconductors, components, systems

PE7_5 Micro- and nanoelectronics, optoelectronics

PE7_7 Signal processing

PE6_5 Cryptology, security, privacy, quantum crypto

Selected Publications

  • T. Addabbo, M. Di Marco, A. Fort, M. Mugnaini, H. Takaloo and V. Vignoli, "A CMOS PUF Circuit Primitive Based on a Two-Dimensional Nonlinear Dynamical System," 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Sapporo, Japan, 2019, pp. 1-5.
  • T. Addabbo, A. Fort, M. Mugnaini, H. Takaloo, V. Vignoli and N. Petra, "Piecewise Linear Chaotic Maps in Current Mode CMOS Circuits: Nonlinear Distortion Analysis," 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Sapporo, Japan, 2019, pp. 1-5.
  • T. Addabbo, A. Fort, R. Moretti, M. Mugnaini, V. Vignoli and M. Garcia Bosque, "Lightweight True Random Bit Generators in PLDs: Figures of Merit and Performance Comparison," 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Sapporo, Japan, 2019, pp. 1-5.
  • T. Addabbo, A. Fort, M. Mugnaini, V. Vignoli and M. Garcia-Bosque, "Digital Nonlinear Oscillators in PLDs: Pitfalls and Open Perspectives for a Novel Class of True Random Number Generators," 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Florence, 2018, pp. 1-5.
  • Acosta, A. J., Addabbo, T., and Tena‐Sánchez, E. ( 2017) Embedded electronic circuits for cryptography, hardware security and true random number generation: an overview. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl., 45: 145– 169.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Di Marco, M., Pancioni, L., Vignoli, V.,"A demonstration circuit implementing 1-bit Physically Unclonable Functions based on two-neurons CNNs", (2014) International Workshop on Cellular Nanoscale Networks and their Applications.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Di Marco, M., Pancioni, L., Vignoli, V., "Physically unclonable functions derived from cellular neural networks", (2013) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 60 (12), pp. 3205-3214
  • Addabbo, T., De Caro, D., Fort, A., Petra, N., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Efficient implementation of pseudochaotic piecewise linear maps with high digitization accuracies", (2012) International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications, 40 (1), pp. 1-14.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Digitized chaos for pseudo-random number generation in cryptography", (2011) Studies in Computational Intelligence, 354, pp. 67-97.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Kocarev, L., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Pseudo-chaotic lossy compression of TRBGs", (2011) Proceedings - IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, art. no. 5937979, pp. 1980-1983.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Kocarev, L., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Pseudo-chaotic lossy compressors for true random number generation", (2011) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 58 (8), art. no. 5710440, pp. 1897-1909.
  • Addabbo, T., Alioto, M., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "A variability-tolerant feedback technique for throughput maximization of TRBGs with predefined entropy", (2010) Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers, 19 (4), pp. 879-895.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Exploiting chaotic dynamics for A-D converter testing", (2010) International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 20 (4), pp. 1099-1118
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Papini, D., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "An efficient and accurate method for the estimation of entropy and other dynamical invariants for piecewise affine chaotic maps", (2009) International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 19 (12), pp. 4175-4195
  • Addabbo, T., Kocarev, L., "Periodic dynamics in queuing networks", (2009) Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 41 (4), pp. 2178-2192.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Papini, D., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Invariant measures of tunable chaotic sources: Robustness analysis and efficient estimation", (2009) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 56 (4), pp. 806-819.
  • Addabbo, T., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Chaos based generation of true random bits", (2009) Studies in Computational Intelligence, 184, pp. 355-377.
  • Addabbo, T., Alioto, M., Fort, A., Pasini, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "A class of maximum-period nonlinear congruential generators derived from the rényi chaotic map", (2007) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 54 (4), pp. 816-828.
  • Addabbo, T., Alioto, M., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "A feedback strategy to improve the entropy of a chaos-based random bit generator", (2006) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 53 (2), pp. 326-337.
  • Addabbo, T., Alioto, M., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "The digital tent map: Performance analysis and optimized design as a low-complexity source of pseudorandom bits", (2006) IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 55 (5), pp. 1451-1458.
  • Addabbo, T., Alioto, M., Fort, A., Rocchi, S., Vignoli, V., "Low-hardware complexity PRBGs based on a piecewise-linear chaotic map", (2006) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, 53 (5), pp. 329-333.