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Concept
Hardware random number generator
Summary
In computing, a hardware random number generator (HRNG), true random number generator (TRNG) or non-deterministic random bit generator (NRBG) is a device that generates random numbers from a physical process capable of producing entropy (in other words, the device always has access to a physical entropy source), rather than by means of an algorithm. Such devices are often based on microscopic phenomena that generate low-level, statistically random "noise" signals, such as thermal noise, the photoelectric effect, involving a beam splitter, and other quantum phenomena. These stochastic processes are, in theory, completely unpredictable for as long as an equation governing such phenomena is unknown or uncomputable. This is in contrast to the paradigm of pseudo-random number generation commonly implemented in computer programs and non-physical nondeterministic random bit generator that does not include hardware dedicated to generation of entropy.
A hardware random number generator is expected to output near-perfect random numbers ("full entropy"). A physical process usually does not have this property, and a practical TRNG typically includes few blocks:
a noise source that implements the physical process producing the entropy. Usually this process is analog, so a digitizer is used to convert the output of the analog source into a binary representation;
a conditioner that improves the quality of the random bits (for example, by removing the bias);
health tests. TRNGs are mostly used in cryptographical algorithms that get completely broken if the random numbers have low entropy, so the testing functionality is usually included.
Hardware random number generators generally produce only a limited number of random bits per second. In order to increase the available output data rate, they are often used to generate the "seed" for a faster pseudo random number generator (a.k.a. "deterministic random bit generator", DRBG). With a proper DRBG algorithm selected, the combination becomes a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator.
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