Apparatus and method for a ring oscillator based random number generator with intentional startup delays timed for each ring to provide a uniform initial spreading of the ring oscillator transition edges. This invention adds a controlled incremental delay in the startup of each individual ring within the ring oscillator random number generator. Typically the delay units used in the ring oscillators themselves can be used to get a course delay between the start times of each ring. A subset of the rings start up with a particular course delay and different fine delays such that the transition edges of all the rings are spread out over the oscillation period. This spreading of the transition edges ensures the output of the random number generator are not a predictable sequence of ones and zeros based on a simultaneous startup of all rings at the same time.