RISC-V Instruction Set Extensions for Lightweight Symmetric Cryptography

Authors

  • Hao Cheng DCS and SnT, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
  • Johann Großschädl DCS and SnT, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
  • Ben Marshall PQShield Ltd, Oxford, UK
  • Dan Page Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  • Thinh Pham Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46586/tches.v2023.i1.193-237

Keywords:

ISA, ISE, lightweight cryptography

Abstract

The NIST LightWeight Cryptography (LWC) selection process aims to standardise cryptographic functionality which is suitable for resource-constrained devices. Since the outcome is likely to have significant, long-lived impact, careful evaluation of each submission with respect to metrics explicitly outlined in the call is imperative. Beyond the robustness of submissions against cryptanalytic attack, metrics related to their implementation (e.g., execution latency and memory footprint) form an important example. Aiming to provide evidence allowing richer evaluation with respect to such metrics, this paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of one separate Instruction Set Extension (ISE) for each of the 10 LWC final round submissions, namely Ascon, Elephant, GIFT-COFB, Grain-128AEADv2, ISAP, PHOTON-Beetle, Romulus, Sparkle, TinyJAMBU, and Xoodyak; although we base the work on use of RISC-V, we argue that it provides more general insight.

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Published

2022-11-29

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

RISC-V Instruction Set Extensions for Lightweight Symmetric Cryptography. (2022). IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2023(1), 193-237. https://doi.org/10.46586/tches.v2023.i1.193-237