RANDOM NUMBER GENERATING SYSTEM AND METHOD

摘要

A large number of random numbers (particularly, true random numbers) essential to the ciphering technology and authentication technology are quickly and stably generated. Counters are provided for respective random pulse generators. Each counter counts the elapsed time after a pulse is generated by the corresponding random pulse generator. When a pulse is generated by at least one of the random pulse generators, the counts of other counters including or not including the count of the corresponding counter are read, and a random number is generated according to the read counts. By another scheme, in response to the pulses inputted from random pulse generators provided according to a required number of bits, the values of the bits of a register are inverted, the values of the bits are read at predetermined timings, and a random number is outputted according to the read data.