This paper delves into the analysis of photon emissions from SRAM in two distinct microcontrollers, utilizing a cost-effective setup. When visual inspection falls short, we harness the power of side channel attacks and image processing techniques to unearth valuable information from the SRAM blocks. In the first part of our study, we investigate the quiescent photon emissions from a PIC microcontroller's SRAM. By deploying a successful correlation attack, we recover the key for the AES algorithm. Furthermore, we apply the SSIM image processing method to discern the content of SRAM cells from the quiescent photon emission images, achieving a prediction accuracy of 97.86%. In the case of the second microcontroller, we investigate the photon emissions from different blocks of an SRAM block within a RISC-V chip for the first time. By employing the SSIM method, we were able to reveal the address of a targeted word, attaining a prediction accuracy of 93%. Our findings underline the efficacy of photon emission side channels for the security analysis of embedded devices.
