Abstract

The invention of public-key cryptography in late 1970s is driving force of significant advances in computer, network, and electronic commerce security in the following 3 decades. Our world now intricately depends on applications built on such security systems, such as Internet banking, wireless communications, and information servers. Not so surprisingly, fundamental algorithms of public-key cryptography (Diffie-Hellman, RSA, and ECC) are based on mathematical objects from number theory and algebra (finite rings and fields). However, the sizes of these objects are in the hundreds or thousands of bits, which makes calculations with them quite time and power consuming. This challenge was realized early on (since early 1980s) by researchers who have proposed advanced algorithms and architectures in order to compute public-key cryptographic functions efficiently, i.e., without inordinate amounts of time and energy. In this talk, we will give a review of research on cryptographic hardware design during the last 25 years.