Towards an Optimized Architecture for Unified Binary Huff Curves

Abstract

Applying unified formula while computing point addition and doubling provides immunity to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) against power analysis attacks (a type of side channel attack). One of the popular techniques providing this unifiedness is the Binary Huff Curves (BHC) which got attention in 2011. In this paper we are presenting highly optimized architectures to implement point multiplication (PM) on the standard NIST curves over [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] using BHC. To achieve a high throughput over area ratio, first of all, we have used a simplified arithmetic and logic unit. Secondly, we have reduced the time to compute PM through Double and Add algorithm. This is achieved by increasing the frequency of operation through a 2-stage pipelined architecture. The increase in clock cycles caused by consequent pipeline hazards is controlled through optimal scheduling of computations involved in PM. The synthesis results show that our designs can work up to a frequency of 377[Formula: see text]MHz on Xilinx Virtex 7 FPGA. Moreover, the overall throughput/area ratio achieved through the adopted approach is up to 20% higher while comparing with available state-of-the-art solutions.