Electronic – AVR Random Number Generator

avrrandom numberxmega

I've read an appnote from TI (slaa338) that describes a technique for generating "for real" (as opposed to "pseudo") random numbers. It exploits the somewhat exotic clock subsystem of the MSP430 to achieve this goal. Does anyone know of a technique that can be implemented on an AVR (I'm interested in the XMega's in particular) for generating "for real" random numbers?

Best Answer

How bad do you to use the XMega? If the crypto and random number generation are a big part of your project, Atmel's SecureAVR series has a hardware random number built in, and is designed for cryptographic applications.

Regardless, I doubt that you'll find a random seed source that has a good distribution. You'll want to run it through a pseudo random number generator a few times As long as you start with a different seed every time, this will give you a nice set of random numbers. An LGC is a quick and easy pseudo random generator:

static unsigned long Seed; 

/* Call before first use of NextVal */
unsigned long InitSeed()
{
   //Your code for random seed here

   // Correct distribution errors in seed
   NextVal();
   NextVal();
   NextVal();
   return NextVal();
}

 /* Linear Congruential Generator 
  * Constants from  
  * "Numerical Recipes in C" 
  * by way of 
   * <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_congruential_generator#LCGs_in_common_use>
   * Note: Secure implementations may want to get uncommon/new LCG values
  */
unsigned long NextVal()
{
  Seed=Seed*1664525L+1013904223L;
  return Seed;
}