High speed world level finite field multipliers in F2m

Finite fields have important applications in number theory, algebraic geometry, Galois theory, cryptography, and coding theory. Recently, the use of finite field arithmetic in the area of cryptography has increasingly gained importance. Elliptic curve and El-Gamal cryptosystems are two important examples of public key cryptosystems widely used today based on finite field arithmetic. Research in this area is moving toward finding new architectures to implement the arithmetic operations more efficiently. Two types of finite fields are commonly used in practice, prime field GF(p) and the binary extension field GF(2 m). The binary extension fields are attractive for high speed cryptography applications since they are suitable for hardware implementations. Hardware implementation of finite field multipliers can usually be categorized into three categories: bit-serial, bit-parallel, and word-level architectures. The word-level multipliers provide architectural flexibility and trade-off between the performance and limitations of VLSI implementation and I/O ports, thus it is of more practical significance. In this work, different word level architectures for multiplication using binary field are proposed. It has been shown that the proposed architectures are more efficient compared to similar proposals considering area/delay complexities as a measure of performance. Practical size multipliers for cryptography applications have been realized in hardware using FPGA or standard CMOS technology, to similar proposals considering area/delay complexities as a measure of performance. Practical size multipliers for cryptography applications have been realized in hardware using FPGA or standard CMOS technology. Also different VLSI implementations for multipliers were explored which resulted in more efficient implementations for some of the regular architectures. The new implementations use a simple module designed in domino logic as the main building block for the multiplier. Significant speed improvements was achieved designing practical size multipliers using the proposed methodology

Area- Efficient VLSI Implementation of Serial-In Parallel-Out Multiplier Using Polynomial Representation in Finite Field GF(2m)

Finite field multiplier is mainly used in elliptic curve cryptography, error-correcting codes and signal processing. Finite field multiplier is regarded as the bottleneck arithmetic unit for such applications and it is the most complicated operation over finite field GF(2m) which requires a huge amount of logic resources. In this paper, a new modified serial-in parallel-out multiplication algorithm with interleaved modular reduction is suggested. The proposed method offers efficient area architecture as compared to proposed algorithms in the literature. The reduced finite field multiplier complexity is achieved by means of utilizing logic NAND gate in a particular architecture. The efficiency of the proposed architecture is evaluated based on criteria such as time (latency, critical path) and space (gate-latch number) complexity. A detailed comparative analysis indicates that, the proposed finite field multiplier based on logic NAND gate outperforms previously known resultsComment: 19 pages, 4 figure

High Speed and Low Latency ECC Implementation over GF(2m) on FPGA

In this paper, a novel high-speed elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) processor implementation for point multiplication (PM) on field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is proposed. A new segmented pipelined full-precision multiplier is used to reduce the latency, and the Lopez-Dahab Montgomery PM algorithm is modified for careful scheduling to avoid data dependency resulting in a drastic reduction in the number of clock cycles (CCs) required. The proposed ECC architecture has been implemented on Xilinx FPGAs' Virtex4, Virtex5, and Virtex7 families. To the best of our knowledge, our single- and three-multiplier-based designs show the fastest performance to date when compared with reported works individually. Our one-multiplier-based ECC processor also achieves the highest reported speed together with the best reported area-time performance on Virtex4 (5.32 μs at 210 MHz), on Virtex5 (4.91 μs at 228 MHz), and on the more advanced Virtex7 (3.18 μs at 352 MHz). Finally, the proposed three-multiplier-based ECC implementation is the first work reporting the lowest number of CCs and the fastest ECC processor design on FPGA (450 CCs to get 2.83 μs on Virtex7)

A VLSI synthesis of a Reed-Solomon processor for digital communication systems

The Reed-Solomon codes have been widely used in digital communication systems such as computer networks, satellites, VCRs, mobile communications and high- definition television (HDTV), in order to protect digital data against erasures, random and burst errors during transmission. Since the encoding and decoding algorithms for such codes are computationally intensive, special purpose hardware implementations are often required to meet the real time requirements. -- One motivation for this thesis is to investigate and introduce reconfigurable Galois field arithmetic structures which exploit the symmetric properties of available architectures. Another is to design and implement an RS encoder/decoder ASIC which can support a wide family of RS codes. -- An m-programmable Galois field multiplier which uses the standard basis representation of the elements is first introduced. It is then demonstrated that the exponentiator can be used to implement a fast inverter which outperforms the available inverters in GF(2m). Using these basic structures, an ASIC design and synthesis of a reconfigurable Reed-Solomon encoder/decoder processor which implements a large family of RS codes is proposed. The design is parameterized in terms of the block length n, Galois field symbol size m, and error correction capability t for the various RS codes. The design has been captured using the VHDL hardware description language and mapped onto CMOS standard cells available in the 0.8-µm BiCMOS design kits for Cadence and Synopsys tools. The experimental chip contains 218,206 logic gates and supports values of the Galois field symbol size m = 3,4,5,6,7,8 and error correction capability t = 1,2,3, ..., 16. Thus, the block length n is variable from 7 to 255. Error correction t and Galois field symbol size m are pin-selectable. -- Since low design complexity and high throughput are desired in the VLSI chip, the algebraic decoding technique has been investigated instead of the time or transform domain. The encoder uses a self-reciprocal generator polynomial which structures the codewords in a systematic form. At the beginning of the decoding process, received words are initially stored in the first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer as they enter the syndrome module. The Berlekemp-Massey algorithm is used to determine both the error locator and error evaluator polynomials. The Chien Search and Forney's algorithms operate sequentially to solve for the error locations and error values respectively. The error values are exclusive or-ed with the buffered messages in order to correct the errors, as the processed data leave the chip

Hardware Implementations of Scalable and Unified Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem Processors

As the amount of information exchanged through the network grows, so does the demand for increased security over the transmission of this information. As the growth of computers increased in the past few decades, more sophisticated methods of cryptography have been developed. One method of transmitting data securely over the network is by using symmetric-key cryptography. However, a drawback of symmetric-key cryptography is the need to exchange the shared key securely. One of the solutions is to use public-key cryptography. One of the modern public-key cryptography algorithms is called Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). The advantage of ECC over some older algorithms is the smaller number of key sizes to provide a similar level of security. As a result, implementations of ECC are much faster and consume fewer resources. In order to achieve better performance, ECC operations are often offloaded onto hardware to alleviate the workload from the servers' processors. The most important and complex operation in ECC schemes is the elliptic curve point multiplication (ECPM). This thesis explores the implementation of hardware accelerators that offload the ECPM operation to hardware. These processors are referred to as ECC processors, or simply ECPs. This thesis targets the efficient hardware implementation of ECPs specifically for the 15 elliptic curves recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The main contribution of this thesis is the implementation of highly efficient hardware for scalable and unified finite field arithmetic units that are used in the design of ECPs. In this thesis, scalability refers to the processor's ability to support multiple key sizes without the need to reconfigure the hardware. By doing so, the hardware does not need to be redesigned for the server to handle different levels of security. Unified refers to the ability of the ECP to handle both prime and binary fields. The resultant designs are valuable to the research community and industry, as a single hardware device is able to handle a wide range of ECC operations efficiently and at high speeds. Thus, improving the ability of network servers to handle secure transaction more quickly and improve productivity at lower costs

Novel Single and Hybrid Finite Field Multipliers over GF(2m) for Emerging Cryptographic Systems

With the rapid development of economic and technical progress, designers and users of various kinds of ICs and emerging embedded systems like body-embedded chips and wearable devices are increasingly facing security issues. All of these demands from customers push the cryptographic systems to be faster, more efficient, more reliable and safer. On the other hand, multiplier over GF(2m) as the most important part of these emerging cryptographic systems, is expected to be high-throughput, low-complexity, and low-latency. Fortunately, very large scale integration (VLSI) digital signal processing techniques offer great facilities to design efficient multipliers over GF(2m). This dissertation focuses on designing novel VLSI implementation of high-throughput low-latency and low-complexity single and hybrid finite field multipliers over GF(2m) for emerging cryptographic systems. Low-latency (latency can be chosen without any restriction) high-speed pentanomial basis multipliers are presented. For the first time, the dissertation also develops three high-throughput digit-serial multipliers based on pentanomials. Then a novel realization of digit-level implementation of multipliers based on redundant basis is introduced. Finally, single and hybrid reordered normal basis bit-level and digit-level high-throughput multipliers are presented. To the authors knowledge, this is the first time ever reported on multipliers with multiple throughput rate choices. All the proposed designs are simple and modular, therefore suitable for VLSI implementation for various emerging cryptographic systems

Reconfiguring Crypto Hardware Accelerators on Wireless Sensor Nodes

Running strong cryptographic algorithms on wireless sensor nodes is extremely difficult due to their limited resources. Hardware accelerators are a suitable means to speed up the computation and reduce power consumption. The drawback of crypto ASICs is the loss of flexibility. In this paper we will shortly introduce a modular design of elliptic curve accelerators which allows to be adjusted to several NIST recommended curves by replacing its reduction unit. This partial reconfiguration will be executed on a Spartan 3 FPGA. The visualization will be done in the following way. Standard motes will be connected to the FPG. On the motes the algorithms will be executed in software. Switching between ECC with a long key, i.e. 571 bit and those with short key length, e.g. to a key length of 163 bit, has a remarkable effect on the execution time. En-/decrypting messages sent to and received from the motes at the FPGA will show that ECC implementation has been reconfigured according to the selected curve on the mote