Design of an elliptic curve cryptography processor using a scalable finite field multiplier in GF(2(193))

초록

ECC (elliptic curve cryptography) offers the highest security per bit among the known public key systems. The benefit of smaller key size makes ECC particularly attractive for embedded applications since its implementation requires less memory and processing power consumption. For a finite field multiplier which is the most important and the most area-consuming unit, a new multiplier structure with scalable output sizes and operation cycles is proposed. The number of output bits can be freely chosen in the new architecture with the performance-area trade-off depending on the application. Arithmetic units using multipliers with various operation bits are synthesized, and their performance, area, and implementation efficiency are compared. Through the use of an optimal arithmetic unit, a 193-bit ECC processor based on the normal basis representation in which the inversion and the square operation units are easy to implement is designed and synthesized in GF(2(193)). The new processor shows superior performance compared to the conventional ECC processors.