Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPM) are rapidly approaching a significant maturity stage, making them a well recognised platform for the development of evolutionary and novel solutions in a wide range of applications for research and industry. However, they are still affected by stochastic terms, notably a high Dark Count Rate (DCR), limiting their use when single photo-electron pulses convey the required information, for instance in chemiluminescence or fluorescence analysis of biological samples. In such applications, randomness of the spontaneous generation of carriers triggering the avalanche and the rate of occurrences is significantly decreasing the sensitivity of the system against solutions based, for instance, on traditional photo-multiplier tubes.

However, unpredictability of the “dark” pulses has a potential value in domains connected to encryption and, in general terms, cybersecurity. ”Random Power” is a project approved within the ATTRACT call for proposals (https://attract-eu.com), having as a main goal the generation of random bit streams by properly analysing the time sequence of the Dark Pulses. The principle has been proven using laboratory equipment and its value assessed applying the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) protocols, complemented by other test suites. The advantages against competing techniques have been thoroughly analysed and the development of a dedicated board, integrating the system in a low cost, low power, scalable design is on-going.

The principle, protected by a patent application entered its international phase by the time of writing (application no.102018000009064, deposited at the Office of the Minister of Economic Development, as required by the Italian law; international PCT extension no.PCT/IB2019/058340 deposited in October 2019) will be described, together with the results obtained so far, the current development stage including an FPGA embedded Time-To-Digital Converter (TDC) and future perspectives.

硅光电倍增管（SiPM）正迅速进入重要的成熟阶段，使其成为公认的平台，可用于在研究和工业的广泛应用中开发进化和新颖的解决方案。但是，它们仍然受到随机条件的影响，特别是高的暗计数率（DCR），限制了它们在单个光电子脉冲传达所需信息时的使用，例如在化学发光或生物样品的荧光分析中。在这样的应用中，自发产生的载流子触发雪崩的随机性和发生率显着降低了系统对基于传统光电倍增管的溶液的灵敏度。

但是，“暗”脉冲的不可预测性在连接到加密和一般而言网络安全的域中具有潜在的价值。“ Random Power”是在ATTRACT征集建议书（https://attract-eu.com）中批准的项目，其主要目标是通过正确分析Dark Pulses的时序来生成随机比特流。该原理已使用实验室设备进行了验证，其价值通过美国国家标准技术研究院（NIST）协议进行了评估，并辅以其他测试套件。相对于竞争技术的优势已得到全面分析，并且正在开发专用板，以低成本，低功耗，可扩展的设计集成系统。

受专利申请保护的该原则在撰写本文时已进入国际阶段（申请102018000009064，根据意大利法律的规定交存于经济发展部长办公室;国际PCT扩展为PCT / IB2019 /将描述2019年10月提交的058340）以及迄今为止获得的结果，当前的开发阶段，包括FPGA嵌入式时间数字转换器（TDC）和未来的前景。