Method and apparatus for generating random numbers

1. Field of the Invention A random number generator generates high quality random numbers by sampling the output of a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) at a frequency much lower than the frequency of the oscillator output. The output frequency of the oscillator is changed significantly during each sampling interval to help ensure the phase relationship of the VCO output and the sampling frequency is unpredictable. That may be accomplished by logically combing the sampling clock and an output from a linear feedback shift register in an exclusive OR gate and supplying that output as the most significant bit used to generate the voltage to control the oscillator. Additional outputs from the linear feedback shift register are also used to generate the control input to the VCO. A distilling circuit such as a CRC circuit or a linear feedback shift register shifts in successive output samples and generates a number therefrom to further increase the randomness of the generated random number.