mark@decwrl.dec.com (Mark G. Johnson) (08/02/89)
There's an article in a recent journal that might be of interest:
"Cellular Automata-Based Pseudorandom Number Generators for
Built-In Self-Test", IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design,
Vol. 8 No. 8, August 1989, pp. 842-859.
The technique produces a parallel *word* of random bits once per clock
tick, unlike the Linear-Feedback Shift Register which produces a serial
bitstream, one bit per clock tick. A major drawback of the LFSR is the
rather high auto- and cross-correlation in the stream of pseudorandoms;
the Cellular Automaton approach seems to improve this dramatically.
Knuth's tests for randomness are applied and the results are favorable.
--
-- Mark Johnson
MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
...!decwrl!mips!mark (408) 991-0208