A Self-timed Ring Based True Random Number Generator

Abdelkarim Cherkaoui (1) , Viktor Fischer (1) , Alain Aubert (1) , Laurent Fesquet (2)

1 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien
2 TIMA - Techniques de l'Informatique et de la Microélectronique pour l'Architecture des systèmes intégrés

Self-timed rings are oscillators in which several events can evolve evenly-spaced in time thanks to analog effects inherent to the ring stage structure. One of their interesting features is that they provide precise high-speed multiphase signals. This paper presents a true random number generator that exploits the jitter of events propagating in a self-timed ring with a high entropy. Designs implemented in Altera Cyclone III and Xilinx Virtex 5 devices provide high quality random bit sequences passing FIPS 140-1 and NIST SP 800-22 statistical tests at a high bit rate.

Keywords: Random number generators; Self-timed rings; Cryptography engineering

Domains: Computer Science [cs]; Embedded Systems; Computer Science [cs]; Cryptography and Security [cs.CR]

Abdelkarim Cherkaoui, Viktor Fischer, Alain Aubert, Laurent Fesquet. A Self-timed Ring Based True Random Number Generator. International symposium on advanced research in asynchronous circuits and systems - ASYNC 2013, May 2013, Santa Monica - California, United States. pp.99-106. ⟨ujm-00840593⟩