Auto-Calibrated Ring Oscillator TRNG Based on Jitter Accumulation

This paper provides a mathematical model that describes how deterministic and Gaussian jitter of an oscillating signal accumulated during a time interval are related to the bits of the binary-coded count value of the oscillations. The model is employed to propose a robust TRNG that has a simple interface (an initialization signal as input and the random bits as output) and that features auto-calibration to certify high entropy of the raw bits provided as well as to work at the highest throughput allowed by the available local Gaussian noise. The mathematical analysis is confirmed with experimental results of ring oscillator (RO) TRNGs described in VHDL and implemented in the programmable logic of Zynq family Xilinx FPGAs, using either another RO or the clock of the FPGA board to control the time interval of oscillations.