A Symmetric and Multilayer Reconfigurable Architecture for Hash Algorithm

Abstract

As an essential protection mechanism of information security, hash algorithms are extensively used in various security mechanisms. The diverse application scenarios make the implementation of hash algorithms more challenging regarding flexibility, performance, and resources. Since the existing studies have such issues as wasted resources and few algorithms are supported when implementing hash algorithms, we proposed a new reconfigurable hardware architecture for common hash algorithms in this paper. First, we used the characteristics of symmetry of SM3 (Shang Mi 3) and SHA2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) to design an architecture that also supports MD5 (Message Digest 5) and SHA1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) on both sides. Then we split this architecture into two layers and eliminated the resource wastes introduced by different word widths through exploiting greater parallelism. Last, we further divided the architecture into four operators and designed an array. The experimental results showed that our architecture can support four types of hash algorithms successfully, and supports 32-bit and 64-bit word widths without wasting resources. Compared with existing designs, our design has a throughput rate improvement of about 56.87–226% and a throughput rate per resource improvement of up to 5.5 times. Furthermore, the resource utilization rose to 80% or above when executing algorithms.