Fully parameterizable elliptic curve cryptography processor over GF(2 m)

Abstract

In this paper we present an Elliptic Curve Point Multiplication processor over base fields GF(2m), suitable for use in a wide range of commercial cryptography applications. Our design operates in a polynomial basis is fully parameterizable in the irreducible polynomial and the chosen Elliptic Curve over any base Galois Field up to a given size. High performance is achieved by use of a dedicated Galois Field arithmetic coprocessor implemented on FPGA. The underlying FPGA architecture is used to increase calculation performance, taking advantage of the properties of this kind of programmable logic device to perform the large number of logical operations required. We discuss the performance of our processor for different Elliptic Curves and compare the results with recent implementations in terms of speed and security. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002.