Magnetic Tunnel Junction Study Charts Path to RNGs 100 Times Faster for Cryptography

Researchers at UT Austin analytically compared three classes of magnetic tunnel junctions used as hardware random number generators. Ferrimagnetic junctions switch about ten times faster than conventional ferromagnetic devices, while non-collinear antiferromagnetic junctions are another ten times faster, reaching roughly 100 times the speed of current hardware.

• Ferromagnetic MTJs switch in nanoseconds and reach 5 Mbps output
• Ferrimagnetic MTJs are 10x faster, in the hundreds of picoseconds
• Non-collinear antiferromagnetic MTJs are 100x faster, in tens of picoseconds
• The work is purely analytical: no devices fabricated, no simulations run