Name
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) are solid-state photo-detectors capable of detecting single photons by exploiting the avalanche effect that occurs in the breakdown of a p-n junction biased above breakdown voltage. By this effect, a SPAD translates an incoming photon to a macroscopic current pulse. These devices are currently used for building medical devices characterized by a very high time resolution. An appealing application of SPAD is to use them as a basic block for building the entropy source of true random number generators.In this paper we focus on such application, and we explore the design challenges behind the realization of a quantum random number generator based on a massively parallel array of SPADs. The matrix under investigation comprises 512x128 independent cells that convert photons onto a raw bit-stream, which, as ensured by the properties of quantum physics, is characterized by a very high level of randomness. The sequences are read out in a 128-bit parallel bus, concatenated, and pipelined onto a de-biasing filter.Subsequently, we fabricated the proposed chip using a standard CMOS process. Our results, achieved on the manufactured device and coupling two matrices, show that our architecture can reach up to 5 Gbit/s while consuming 25pJ/bit, thus demonstrating scalability and performance for any random number generators based on SPADs. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2014 | 10.1109/ASPDAC.2014.6742986 | ASP-DAC |
Keywords | Field | DocType |
CMOS integrated circuits,avalanche photodiodes,electric breakdown,photodetectors,random number generation,128-bit parallel bus,SPAD,avalanche effect,breakdown voltage,debiasing filter,entropy source,macroscopic current pulse,massively parallel array,p-n junction breakdown,quantum physics,quantum random number generator,raw bitstream,single-photon avalanche diodes,solid-state photodetectors,standard CMOS process,storage capacity 128 bit,true random number generators | Avalanche photodiode,Single-photon avalanche diode,Computer science,Massively parallel,Hardware random number generator,Electronic engineering,Random number generation,Avalanche diode,Electrical engineering,Avalanche effect,Randomness | Conference |
ISSN | Citations | PageRank |
2153-6961 | 0 | 0.34 |
References | Authors | |
0 | 6 | |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Burri | 1 | 9 | 1.99 |
| Damien Stucki | 2 | 0 | 0.68 |
| Yuki Maruyama | 3 | 46 | 7.52 |
| Claudio Bruschini | 4 | 14 | 4.68 |
| Edoardo Charbon | 5 | 385 | 74.69 |
| Francesco Regazzoni | 6 | 603 | 62.00 |