T. Davidovic

Master thesis at Czech Technical University in Prague

[bib] [thesis] [presentation]

Abstract: This thesis deals with a design of a versatile cryptographic coprocessor for Elliptic Curve Cryptography dedicated for cryptographic operations over binary finite field, GF(2^m). The processor can work with (almost) any binary finite field of order (cardinality, number of elements) between 22 and 21000, can operate over either affine or projective coordinates and can use either polynomial basis or normal basis represenatation of field elements. The change of coordinate system is realized by a replacement of a controllers microprogram. The change of basis is done by replacement of appropriate arithmetic units and a minor change in a microprogram.

We use a Combo6X card as an implementation platform. We compare various processor configurations in area, frequency and clock cycles spent on the basic operation, scalar multiplication of a point on a curve. We also evaluate total time per single multiplication to determine whether PCI bus latencies prevent us from using Combo6X as a dedicated accelerator.