A scalable SIMD RISC-V based processor with customized vector extensions for CRYSTALS-kyber

Abstract

This paper uses RISC-V vector extensions to speed up lattice-based operations in architectures based on HW/SW co-design. We analyze the structure of the number-theoretic transform (NTT), inverse NTT (INTT), and coefficient-wise multiplication (CWM) in CRYSTALS-Kyber, a lattice-based key encapsulation mechanism. We propose 12 vector extensions for CRYSTALS-Kyber multiplication and four for finite field operations in combination with two optimizations of the HW/SW interface. This results in a speed-up of 141.7, 168.7, and 245.5 times for NTT, INTT, and CWM, respectively, compared with the baseline implementation, and a speed-up of over four times compared with the state-of-the-art HW/SW co-design using RV32IMC.