Monday, May 18, 2020

Samsung now makes quantum phones

ExtremeTech reportw:
However, you probably don’t have a quantum 5G phone. ...

The new Galaxy A Quantum is the first and only smartphone with a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) inside. The device itself is based on the mid-range Galaxy A71 5G, which Samsung has already launched in numerous markets sans quantum technology. ...

According to Samsung, the Galaxy A Quantum is much more secure than other smartphones thanks to its QRNG hardware. This is completely separate from the SoC and other core hardware. It’s a tiny embedded chipset called the SKT IDQ S2Q000 that’s just 2.5mm square consisting of an LED and a CMOS sensor. The LED shines into the sensor to produce image noise, and the sensor interprets that as quantum randomness. These random noise patterns become the basis for truly random number strings.

The Galaxy A Quantum will go on sale May 22nd in South Korea for KRW 649,000. That’s about $530, which is a bit more than the A71 5G on which it is based.
Modern electronics uses quantum mechanics for all sorts of things, but this is not really quantum. It is just thermal noise.

Some of the promoters of quantum computing say that quantum computers could be used for random number generation, if nothing else. Of course, chips for reliable random number generation have been available for decades. Random numbers are needed for cryptography, but there are many ways to solve that with old technology.

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