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On Using Instruction-Set Extensions for Minimizing the Hardware-Implementation Costs of Symmetric-Key Algorithms on a Low-Resource Microcontroller

  • Conference paper
Book cover Radio Frequency Identification. Security and Privacy Issues (RFIDSec 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 7739))

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Abstract

Due to the continuously increasing design complexity of passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, relying on microcontroller-based architectures will become vital in the future. Re-using the microcontroller for multiple tasks, e.g., protocol handling and computing cryptographic algorithms is advantageous from a system point-of-view. In this work we present instruction-set extensions (ISEs) for minimizing the hardware-implementation costs of symmetric-key algorithms on a synthesizable 8-bit microcontroller. We have analyzed the block ciphers: Present-80, SEA96,8, and XTEA. Integrating ISEs has reduced the hardware-implementation costs by 4 to 48%. When considering the re-use of the microcontroller for protocol handling, overhead costs for implementing encryption and decryption functionality of the block ciphers are between 519 and 1 021 GEs for a 130 nm CMOS technology. Implementation costs for encryption-only versions are between 333 and 520 GEs. Our results emphasize that integrating ISEs for lowering the hardware-implementation costs of symmetric-key algorithms on low-resource microcontrollers is beneficial.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK), Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 16a, Graz, 8010, Austria

    Hannes Groß & Thomas Plos

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  1. Hannes Groß
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  2. Thomas Plos
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, Department of Digital Security, Radboud University Nijmegen, Heyendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Jaap-Henk Hoepman

  2. Electrical Engineering Department, K.U. Leuven, ESAT - SCD/COSIC, Kasteelpark 10, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium

    Ingrid Verbauwhede

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Groß, H., Plos, T. (2013). On Using Instruction-Set Extensions for Minimizing the Hardware-Implementation Costs of Symmetric-Key Algorithms on a Low-Resource Microcontroller. In: Hoepman, JH., Verbauwhede, I. (eds) Radio Frequency Identification. Security and Privacy Issues. RFIDSec 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7739. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36140-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36140-1_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-36139-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-36140-1

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