Overview
Many requirements for AES encryption fall in the middle ground in terms of
the throughput they demand, and Helion recognise that in order for IP to be
an effective choice, it should never be a compromise. Where many IP vendors
may limit you to a choice of one or two solutions, Helion are different.
We have developed a range of four AES core families each offering a different
speed/area balance which together cover any throughput requirement up to many
tens of Gbps; this way you can choose the most optimal fit for your particular
requirement. Furthermore, we have invested a great deal of effort into
developing our mid-rate solutions to a point where they are supremely efficient
and very easy to use. In this section we look at the Standard AES core family.
Helion Standard AES Solutions
The Helion Standard AES core family is our mid-rate solution, aimed at applications which
require a few hundred Mbps throughput, whilst offering a really efficient area footprint.
This core is perfect for many applications, for example wired and wireless networking,
or encrypting audio or video streams. The result is a core with a particularly high
speed-to-area ratio, spanning all ASIC and FPGA technologies.
Despite its compact footprint, the Standard AES family forms a very powerful
and flexible platform. It has been designed in modular form and is supplied as a series
of powerful, re-usable building blocks. This way, you can build up all kinds of
interesting solutions where resources can be shared or replicated according to your
exact requirements. The Standard family offers full AES encryption and decryption
using any combination of the three AES key sizes (128-, 192-, and 256-bits).
It can be used to implement any of the common block cipher modes as well as many of
the more recent complex modes (take a look at our AES modes
pages for more information). The table below outlines the kind of area and
performance achievable using the Standard AES core.
Measured Area and Performance
128-bit keysize ECB Encryption including hardware key expansion
| TARGET |
MAX THROUGHPUT |
AREA |
ASIC
(0.13um CMOS) |
>650 Mbps |
<9.5k gates
(no RAM required) |
Actel FPGA
(ProASIC3 -2) |
>350 Mbps |
1326 tiles
3 RAMs |
Altera FPGA
(Cyclone 2 -6) |
>380 Mbps |
593 LEs
3 M4K RAMs |
Altera FPGA
(Stratix 2 -3) |
>610 Mbps |
536 ALUTs
3 M4K RAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Spartan 3 -5) |
>420 Mbps |
236 slices
3 BlockRAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 4 -11) |
>680 Mbps |
226 slices
3 BlockRAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 5 -3) |
>810 Mbps |
156 slices
0 BlockRAMs |
If the performance of the Helion Standard AES core does not match your needs, try looking at our
Fast AES cores if you need to go faster, or our Tiny AES cores if you are able
to run at a lower rate.
Datasheets
For full details of the Helion Standard AES cores, please download the datasheet appropriate to your target technology.
Click here for the ASIC core data sheet (PDF format)
Click here for the Actel FPGA core data sheet (PDF format)
Click here for the Altera FPGA core data sheet (PDF format)
Click here for the Xilinx FPGA core data sheet (PDF format)
Whitepapers
Click here for an easy to read overview on AES in hardware (PDF format)
Contact
For more detailed information on this or any of our other products and services,
please feel free to email us at
helioncores@heliontech.com and we will be pleased to discuss how we can assist
with your individual requirements.
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