[sdiy] analog loses another niche

[Dave Manley]

 On Wed 10/06/30  4:34 PM , "Tim Parkhurst" tim.parkhurst at gmail.com sent:
> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Tim Ressel <madhun20
> 01 at yahoo.com> wrote:> How about a digital (what else?) camera with
> motion capture software, trained on a jar full of fire flies? Rube Goldberg
> meets diy!>
> > --tr
> >
> 
> Difficult to produce reliably in nanometer geometries. Not that it
> wouldn't be fun to watch.
> 
> 
> Tim (surprised that Rube Goldberg had children, what with all the
> levers and pulleys involved) Servo


there used to be an online RNG that was based on a webcam watching multiple lava lamps.  here, let me google that: http://www.lavarnd.org/image/lavaclamp.jpg

all digital trngs based on metastability aren't new, for example Cavium crypto chips claim to have a trng, there are also some published papers on the subject, for example: 

Tokunaga, C., Blaauw, D. and Mudge, T., True random number generator with a metastability-based quality control. IEEE Journal of Solid-state Circuits. v43 i1. 78-85.

regarding 50/50 metastability: probably tuned the n vs. p transistor sizes