Hardware Efficient Pseudo-Random Number Generator using Chen Chaotic System on FPGA

This paper introduces an FPGA implementation of a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) using Chen’s chaotic system. This paper mainly focuses on the development of an efficient VLSI architecture of PRNG in terms of bit rate, area resources, latency, maximum length sequence, and randomness. First, we analyze the dynamic behavior of the chaotic trajectories of Chen’s system and set the parameter’s value to maintain low hardware design complexity. A circuit realization of the proposed PRNG is presented using hardwired shifting, additions, subtractions, and multiplexing schemes. The benefit of this architecture, all the binary multiplications (except [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] operations are performed using hardwired shifting. Moreover, the generated sequences pass all the 15 statistical tests of NIST, while it generates pseudo-random numbers at a uniform clock rate with minimum hardware complexity. The proposed architecture of PRNG is realized using Verilog HDL, prototyped on the Virtex-5 FPGA (XC5VLX50T) device, and its analysis has been done using the Matlab tool. Performance analysis confirms that the proposed Chen chaotic attractor-based PRNG scheme is simple, secure, and hardware efficient, with high potential to be adopted in cryptography applications.