A high throughput area time efficient pseudo uniform random number generator based on the TT800 algorithm

Abstract

Many computer simulations require large quantities of uncorrelated random numbers to be generated quickly. Examples include all forms of Monte Carlo simulation, generating phase screens to simulate the effects of atmospheric turbulence and the simulation of electrical noise in sensors. A flexible way to generate random numbers of arbitrary distribution is to modify the distribution of a source of uniform random numbers. Thus it is of interest to have a fast uniform random number generator implemented in reconfigurable hardware. In this paper we present multiple hardware implementations of the TT800 algorithm. The best implementation achieved a throughput of 4.6×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">9</sup> uniform random numbers per second using 24 parallel generators by making use of 253 Xilinx Virtex XC2VP70 slices. It has an area time rating of 0.05× 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-6</sup> Xilinx slices × seconds per 32 bit random number. It has the lowest area time metric and only half the area requirement than the previously best published multi-port, single seed generator with at least a 2 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">800</sup> period.