Overview
Modular Exponentiation based on long number arithmetic is the foundation for a number
of public key encryption and key exchange mechanisms.
The most well known of these is probably RSA. This algorithm was first described
in 1977 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman at MIT, its name being taken from
the three inventor's initials. RSA is suitable for both signing as well as encryption,
and is still very widely used in electronic commerce protocols; it is considered to
be secure given sufficiently long keys.
Another well known application for Modular Exponentiation is Diffie-Hellman key
exchange. This scheme was first published by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman
in 1976, and is a cryptographic protocol which allows two parties that have no
prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a shared secret key over an
insecure communications channel. This shared key can then be used to encrypt higher
speed communications using a more conventional symmetric key cipher like AES.
Both of these schemes, plus others, use long number modular arithmetic as
their basis. Due to the extremely large operand lengths (typically 1024- or 2048-bits),
this kind of arithmetic processing is very slow when implemented in a standard
processor, so it is perfect for offloading into dedicated hardware.
Helion RSA, Diffie-Hellman and
Modular Exponentiation Solutions
Helion offer a range of RSA, Diffie-Hellman and Modular Exponentiation solutions,
covering a broad spread of speed and area requirements.
Existing offerings from other vendors concentrate on being the biggest and fastest
solutions around, but we take a more considered approach, and offer not only big and
fast solutions, but also extremely compact solutions which are ideal when your target
throughput is lower.
As well as our ASIC solutions, these cores are also available specially targeted
at FPGA, and offer superb performance in this technology; these are not simply
re-targeted ASIC cores, but designed from the ground up to be highly optimal in
programmable logic. In this guise, they are absolutely ideal for use in lower volume
applications. Of course fully compatible versions are available bridging ASIC and FPGA,
which are perfect for use in ASIC prototyping applications.
Using these cores is extremely easy; they present a shared memory interface to the
outside world, into which the user simply places the operands for processing. Once
in place, the engine can be started together with an indication as to what processing
is required. At some time later, the engine will indicate that it has completed its
processing, and the results can be read from the shared memory interface....simple!
All these solutions are in place and fully available. They have been fully proven in
production ASIC and FPGA silicon by numerous customers, and are easy to use and highly efficient.
Measured Area and Performance
STD256 version - for medium rate applications
| TARGET |
TYPICAL PERFORMANCE |
AREA |
Altera FPGA
(Stratix II -3) |
35 RSA operations per sec* |
2258 ALUTs
1 M4K RAM, 61 M512 RAMs |
Altera FPGA
(Stratix III -2) |
49 RSA operations per sec* |
2123 ALUTs
2 M9K RAMs, 58 MLABs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Spartan 3 -5) |
18 RSA operations per sec* |
1826 slices
1 BlockRAM |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 4 -11) |
32 RSA operations per sec* |
1826 slices
1 BlockRAM |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 5 -3) |
38 RSA operations per sec* |
599 slices
1 BlockRAM |
TINY32 version - for lower rate applications, eg. supporting a single secure endpoint
| TARGET |
TYPICAL PERFORMANCE |
AREA |
Altera FPGA
(Cyclone III -6) |
1 RSA operation per sec* |
680 LEs
4 M9K RAMs |
Altera FPGA
(Stratix III -2) |
4 RSA operations per sec* |
415 ALUTs
4 M9K RAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Spartan 3 -5) |
1 RSA operation per sec* |
272 slices
3 BlockRAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 4 -11) |
2 RSA operations per sec* |
272 slices
3 BlockRAMs |
Xilinx FPGA
(Virtex 5 -3) |
4 RSA operations per sec* |
159 slices
1 BlockRAM |
* Based on 1024-bit RSA signatures (|E|=1024, |M|=1024). Note that this will be a much higher rate for
shorter exponent values eg. for RSA verifications or Diffie-Hellman applications.
Datasheets
For full details of the whole range of Helion ModExp cores, please download the datasheet appropriate
to your target technology.
Click here for the Altera FPGA core data sheet (PDF format)
Click here for the Xilinx FPGA core data sheet (PDF format)
Please contact Helion for ASIC and Actel datasheets.
Contact
For more detailed information on these 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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