Patent ID: 7526087

Claim:
A random number generator, comprising: a noise source; a circuit controlling random current consumption, receiving a noise voltage from the noise source to drive the circuit controlling random current consumption and producing a random control signal, and comprising: a comparator for receiving the noise voltage from the noise source to generate a digital signal; a shift register for receiving and storing the digital signal; and a decoder for receiving the digital signal stored in the shift register and decoding the digital signal to generate the random control signal; and a circuit generating random bits, receiving the noise voltage from the noise source and the random control signal from the circuit controlling random current consumption to generate a random number, the circuit generating random bits comprising: a voltage-controlled oscillator controlled by both the noise voltage and the random control signal, the voltage-controlled oscillator comprising: at least three inverting oscillators for receiving the noise voltage and generating a clock output; a plurality of buffers for charging and discharging uniformly coupled to the inverting oscillator, for receiving the random control signal from the circuit controlling random current consumption, the random control signal controlling the number of buffers for charge and the number of buffers for discharge; and at least three capacitors, each coupled to one of the inverting oscillators in parallel, wherein, through the capacitors, the clock is controlled by the number of buffers for charge and the number of buffers for discharge; and a plurality of frequency dividers coupled to the voltage-controlled oscillator; and a plurality of flip-flops coupled to the frequency dividers to generate the random number.