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True random number generator (TRNG) plays a vital role in a variety of security applications and protocols. The security and privacy of an asset rely on encryption, which solely depends on the quality of random numbers. Memory chips are widely used for generating random numbers because of their prevalence in modern electronic systems. Unfortunately, existing Dynamic Random-access Memory (DRAM)-based TRNGs produce random numbers with either limited entropy or poor throughput. In this paper, we propose a DRAM-latency based TRNG that generates high-quality random numbers. The silicon results from Samsung and Micron DDR3 DRAM modules show that our proposed DRAM-latency based TRNG is robust (against different operating conditions and environmental variations) and acceptably fast.
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This content will become publicly available on December 17, 2025
Design and testing of photon-based hardware random number generator
Hardware random number generators (HRNG) are widely used in the computer world for security purposes as well as in the science world as a source of the high-quality randomness for the models and simulations. Currently existing HRNG are either costly or very slow and of questionable quality. This work proposes a simple design of the HRNG based on the low-number photon absorption by a detector (a photo-multiplier tube of a silicon-based one i.e. SiPM, MPPC, etc.) that can provide a large volume of high-quality random numbers. The prototype design, different options of processing and the testing of quality of the generator output are presented.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2316097
- PAR ID:
- 10631988
- Publisher / Repository:
- Sissa Medialab
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1215
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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