Programmable and Parallel ECC Coprocessor Architecture: Tradeoffs between Area, Speed and Security

Elliptic Curve Cryptography implementations are known to be vulnerable to various side-channel attacks and fault injection attacks, and many countermeasures have been proposed. However, selecting and integrating a set of countermeasures targeting multiple attacks into an ECC design is far from trivial. Security, performance and cost need to be considered together. In this paper, we describe a generic ECC coprocessor architecture, which is scalable and programmable. We demonstrate the coprocessor architecture with a set of countermeasures to address a collection of side-channel attacks and fault attacks. The programmable design of the coprocessor enables tradeoffs between area, speed, and security.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CHES
• Authors: Xu Guo, Junfeng Fan, Patrick Schaumont, Ingrid Verbauwhede
• Keywords: CHES 2009, Cryptography, ECC Coprocessor Architecture, Fault Injection Attacks, Various Side-channel Attacks