Parametric encryption hardware design

Abstract

We present new scalable hardware designs of modular multiplication, modular exponentiation and primality test. These operations are at the core of most public-key crypto-systems. All the modules are based on an original Montgomery modular multiplier. Our multiplier is the first Montgomery multiplier design with variable pipeline stages and variable serial replications. It is 8 times faster than the best existing hardware implementation and 30 times faster than an optimised software implementation on an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 2.8 GHz. Our exponentiator is 2.4 times faster than an optimised software implementation. It reaches the performance of a more complex FPGA design using DSP blocks which is the fastest in the literature. Our prime tester is 2.2 times faster than the software implementation and is 85 times faster than hardware implementations of the same algorithm with only 60% area overhead. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.