FPGA based Cryptographic acceleration

Image courtesy: Hackster.io

In this blog post, we will explore how FPGAs can be used to accelerate some common cryptographic operations. A quick intro on Cryptography  before that.

Cryptographic acceleration is the use of dedicated hardware to perform cryptographic operations, such as encryption, decryption, hashing, or digital signature verification. Cryptographic acceleration can improve the speed, security, and efficiency of cryptographic applications, such as secure communication, data protection, or blockchain.

One way to implement cryptographic acceleration is by using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs are integrated circuits that can be configured by the user to perform specific functions. FPGAs have several advantages over other types of hardware for cryptographic acceleration, such as:

• FPGAs are flexible and adaptable. They can be reprogrammed to support different cryptographic algorithms, protocols, or standards, without requiring physical changes to the hardware. This allows FPGAs to keep up with the evolving cryptographic landscape and to meet the diverse needs of different applications.
• FPGAs are parallel and scalable. They can execute multiple operations simultaneously, which increases the throughput and performance of cryptographic applications. They can also be easily scaled up or down by adding or removing FPGA modules, depending on the workload and resource requirements.
• FPGAs are secure and reliable. They can resist physical attacks, such as tampering or reverse engineering, by using encryption or obfuscation techniques. They can also detect and correct errors, such as faults or glitches, by using error correction codes or redundancy schemes.

Some of the cryptographic applications are

• Symmetric encryption: Symmetric encryption is a method of encrypting and decrypting data using the same secret key. Examples of symmetric encryption algorithms are AES, DES, or ChaCha20. FPGAs can implement symmetric encryption algorithms in parallel pipelines, which can process multiple blocks of data at the same time. FPGAs can also optimize the key expansion, round function, or mixing operations of symmetric encryption algorithms using dedicated logic blocks or lookup tables.
• Asymmetric encryption: Asymmetric encryption is a method of encrypting and decrypting data using a pair of public and private keys. Examples of asymmetric encryption algorithms are RSA, ECC, or ElGamal. FPGAs can implement asymmetric encryption algorithms using arithmetic units, such as multipliers, adders, or shifters. FPGAs can also accelerate the modular arithmetic operations, such as modular exponentiation or modular inversion, which are essential for asymmetric encryption algorithms using specialized hardware modules or coprocessors.
• Hashing: Hashing is a method of generating a fixed-length output from a variable-length input. Examples of hashing algorithms are SHA-2, SHA-3, or BLAKE2. FPGAs can implement hashing algorithms using feedback loops or unrolled structures, which can process one or more input blocks per clock cycle. FPGAs can also optimize the compression function, message expansion, or padding operations of hashing algorithms using custom logic elements or memory blocks.