A Testable Random Bit Generator based on a High Resolution Phase Noise Detection

A novel, patent pending, technique to design random bit generators, suitable to be integrated in a cryptographic device, is presented. The proposed generator is based on a high resolution phase noise detection in free running ring oscillators and it belongs to the class of stateless generators introduced by the authors in a previous work. Therefore, the quality (entropy per bit) of the produced bit stream can be easily tested after the digital post-processing without requiring time-consuming statistical tests on the noise source.