Software Solutions for True Random Number Generation

Random number generation is a key technology underlying secure communications that has become increasingly important as the volume of sensitive data transmitted over high-speed networks—as well as awareness of its security and privacy implications–continues to grow. To achieve a software solution for true random number generation, we propose the Hybrid Boolean Network (HBN) which can be easily synthesized on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and has been shown to generate random bits that pass international tests of randomness at a rate of 100 Mbit/second. It typically uses only a tiny fraction of FPGA resources and can be easily parallelized and has been demonstrated to deliver 12.8 Gbit/sec of random numbers, continuously, by running 128 circuits in parallel.