Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2015/270

Fibonacci Ring Oscillators as True Random Number Generators - A Security Risk

Markus Dichtl

Abstract: Fibonacci ring oscillators are shown to have a risk to oscillate periodically instead of chaotically. The security implications of this are discussed. The probability of the occurrence of the periodic oscillations is determined experimentally on an FPGA for Fibonacci ring oscillators of lengths 16 and 32. Means to overcome the problem of the periodic oscillations are also discussed.

Category / Keywords: implementation / random number generation, TRNG, ring oscillator, Fibonacci ring oscillator

Date: received 23 Mar 2015

Contact author: Markus Dichtl at siemens com

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20150323:122947 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2015/270

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