4 ms·
Micro-LEDs boost random number generation
- privatelypublic 1y agoAnybody have input on why this isn't a "Paper Tiger"?
- huflungdung 1y agoBecause it isn’t a legal threat.
- thfuran 1y agoWhy would it be?
- ericdotlee 1y agoI usually stick to lava lamps
- ashirviskas 1y agoLava lamps have been deprecated, Lava LEDs are the new standard
- cwmoore 1y agoFender amps here
- p1necone 1y agoMy first question would be whether it's possible to influence the output via triggering power fluctuations on the motherboard - e.g. by running expensive code to cause the CPU/GPU to scale up.
- gus_massa 1y agoProbably not. It's hard to guess, but they probably get a Poison Distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution in the detector, they may read only a few of the lower bits of the data, and then mix them in the entropy pool, with other sources. So the end result is quite unpredictable. It's somehow similar to a random generator where you have 5 dices, roll them and then add to the entropy pool only if the total was even or odd. Changing the power is like forcing the system to use only 4 dices. It changes the probabilities a little, but not in a very controlable way, and with a good mixing in the entropy pool it's almost irrelevant.
- dmesg 1y agoI read the actual open access paper: https://opg.optica.org/oe/viewmedia.cfm?uri=oe-33-11-22154&seq=0 https://opg.optica.org/oe/viewmedia.cfm?uri=oe-33-11-22154&s... Note if you look at the paper, you notice a close but not entirely perfect normal distribution, but nothing you cannot fix with UDNs and Irwin-Hall. For reference how that is done you can read the bottom of this very useful RNG article: https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece4760/RP2040/C_SDK_random/index_random.html https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece4760/RP2040/C... My overall verdict on the tech in OP is that it is amazingly promising!
- skinwill 1y agoCan someone explain to me how this is different than a simple noise generator based on a PN junction? As in, isn't this just amplifying noise and aren't there less sensational ways of doing nearly the same thing? Does measuring a photon with this method actually get you better randomness? I have some serious gaps in my understanding here and an ELI5 would be neat.
- bob1029 1y agoMeasuring photons in this manner gives you the best randomness. It is effectively a quantum technique. A PN junction is (mostly) classical. The specific mechanism is mentioned in the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_emission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_emission > Although there is only one electronic transition from the excited state to ground state, there are many ways in which the electromagnetic field may go from the ground state to a one-photon state. That is, the electromagnetic field has infinitely more degrees of freedom, corresponding to the different directions in which the photon can be emitted. Equivalently, one might say that the phase space offered by the electromagnetic field is infinitely larger than that offered by the atom. This infinite degree of freedom for the emission of the photon results in the apparent irreversible decay, i.e., spontaneous emission.
- cubefox 1y agoThe question is whether quantum mechanical noise could have a conceivable advantage over classical noise. I strongly suspect: no. Classical noise is already factually unpredictable, so the theoretical unpredictability (assuming no hidden variable theories I guess) of quantum noise doesn't add anything.
- bob1029 1y agoClassical noise is only unpredictable if you are lacking the necessary physical information to make an accurate prediction. Otherwise, it is always predictable. Quantum noise is not based in any kind of physical information in the same way. It is intrinsically random. The "randomness" isn't merely a side effect of a bunch of physical phenomena. You cannot compromise a QRNG even if you had perfect knowledge of the state of every particle in the system over time. https://www.jpmorgan.com/technology/technology-blog/certified-randomness https://www.jpmorgan.com/technology/technology-blog/certifie...
- gsliepen 1y agoI am not surprised, as most things that generate light are generating photons using quantum effects, and thus are true random. Furthermore, CCD and CMOS detectors themselves have a quantum efficiency less than 100%, meaning they only detect a fraction of the incoming photons at random. So, a regular light bulb in front of a webcam is already a quite high-bandwidth source of true random numbers. So, there is nothing revolutionary going on there, this paper is more about how to build a system with micro-LEDs and a photodetector and how to remove any inherent biases in that system, with the obvious benefit of being able to make something very compact.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoThat’s not actually what the paper is about and it does discuss that LEDs did random number generation isn’t new. It’s more about using GaN microLEDs to produce high volume real time random numbers at a very low component, cost, and power. The key emphasis in the paper is on the high rates of number creation - 9Gb/s.
- ginko 1y agoHuh, I thought QRNG generally referred to quasirandom number generators but apparently the quantum use is a lot more common. Still a bit unfortunate of a name clash since they're pretty much the opposite thing.
- amelius 1y agoAt some point quantum randomness may turn out to be quasirandom too. But until then, indeed the terminology is confusing. I suggest using "pseudo randomness" instead, PRNG.
- ginko 1y agoPseudo-random and quasi-random number generators are different though. I guess the better term is just low-discrepancy sequence, which is also what Wikipedia uses.
- westurner 1y agoScholarlyArticle: "Micro-LED based quantum random number generators" (2025) https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-33-11-22154&id=571324 https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-33-11-22154&id...