As technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, the Internet of Things, wearable electronics, and edge computing continue to spread in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the importance of hardware security for the safe storage, transmission, and processing of large volumes of data has grown substantially. One of the key components of such security systems is the true random number generator (TRNG), which produces unpredictable random numbers for cryptographic use. In recent years, research on TRNGs has increasingly moved beyond conventional CMOS-based approaches toward semiconductor devices built from emerging materials. These material-based TRNGs offer several advantages, including high integration density, low power consumption, compact form factors, and strong suitability for next-generation edge and IoT environments, because they can directly exploit the intrinsic stochasticity of the device itself as an entropy source. In this review, recent studies on TRNGs based on emerging material-based semiconductor devices are examined from the perspectives of entropy sources, device structures, randomness validation, and wearable/flexible extensions. By bringing together the key physical mechanisms, device platforms, evaluation criteria, and prospects for wearable and flexible electronics in edge and IoT environments, this review aims to provide a useful framework for future research on hardware security devices.

Flexible fiber- or yarn-based one-dimensional (1-D) energy storage devices are essential for developing wearable electronics and have thus attracted considerable attention in various fields including ubiquitous healthcare (U-healthcare) systems and textile platforms. 1-D supercapacitors (SCs), in particular, are recognized as one of the most promising candidates to power wearable electronics due to their unique energy storage and high adaptability for the human body. They can be woven into textiles or effectively designed into diverse architectures for practical use in day-to-day life. This review summarizes recent important development and advances in fiber-based supercapacitors, concerning the active materials, fiber configuration, and applications. Active materials intended to enhance energy storage capability including carbon nanomaterials, metal oxides, and conductive polymers, are first discussed. With their loading methods for fiber electrodes, a summary of the four main types of fiber SCs (e.g., coil, supercoil, buckle, and hybrid structures) is then provided, followed by demonstrations of some practical applications including wearability and power supplies. Finally, the current challenges and perspectives in this field are made for future works.

A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy, and has been considered as a substitute for continuous power supply due to its high performance, simple structure and eco-friendliness. Recently, it is important to develop a TENG using a non-toxic material in order to use it as a power source for wearable, attachable, and body-embeddable electronics. Here, we developed a human friendly TENG using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel containing acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC), a non-toxic plasticizer. PVC gels were fabricated using various ratios of PVC and ATBC, and optimized by investigating dielectric properties, surface potential, output performance, and durability. The PVC gel based TENG generates output signals of 73 V and 4.3 μA, i.e., a 5-fold enhancement in the output power compared to pristine PVC-based TENG. In addition, the PVC gel can be stretched over 500% of strain. This study is expected to be helpful in the future development of non-toxic wearable TENG.