Athena - Automated Tool for Hardware Evaluation: Software Environment for Fair and Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Cryptographic Hardware Using Fpgas

ATHENA AUTOMATED TOOL FOR HARDWARE EVALUATION: SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT FOR FAIR AND COMPREHENSIVE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CRYPTOGRAPHIC HARDWARE USING FPGAS Venkata Amirineni, MS George Mason University, 2010 Thesis Director: Dr. Kris Gaj Fair comparison of the hardware efficiency of cryptographic algorithms, modeled in Hardware Description Languages and implemented using FPGAs, is a complex task. The results of the comparison depend on the inherent properties of competing algorithms, as well as on selected hardware architectures, implementation techniques, FPGA families, languages and tools. The development of new cryptographic standards through contests, such as AES, eSTREAM, and SHA-3 competitions, requires fair comparison of multiple cryptographic algorithms in terms of their hardware efficiency. To address this issue and to provide a comprehensive environment for an efficient evaluation of multiple algorithms, ATHENa, Automated Tool for Hardware EvaluatioN, has been developed. ATHENa facilitates fair, comprehensive, reliable, and automated comparison of cryptographic algorithms, hardware architectures, FPGA families, as well as FPGA tools and HDL languages. In this seminar, we present the common pitfalls and difficulties involved with the fair comparisons and demonstrate the capabilities of ATHENa through several case studies. Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Statement of the Problem Fair comparison of hardware implementations of cryptography is at the basis of progress in cryptographic engineering. New hardware architectures and optimization techniques have to be compared to the current state of the art. The development of new cryptographic standards through contests, such as AES [1], eSTREAM [2], and SHA-3 competitions [3], requires fair comparison of multiple cryptographic algorithms in terms of their hardware efficiency. Revealing source codes is often not an option because of the authors’ concerns regarding their intellectual property rights, export restrictions, and/or possible loss of profits from licensing hardware cores. This thesis reports on a comprehensive environment, Automated Tool for Hardware EvaluatioN (ATHENa) [4] that facilitates the fair comparison of cryptographic implementations, modeled in Hardware Description Language (HDL), without revealing the source codes. The project was inspired by a similar environment for comparing software implementations of cryptography, developed by Daniel Bernstein and Tanja Lange, called eBACS (ECRYPT Benchmarking of Cryptographic Systems) [5]. ATHENa allows the characterization of cryptographic algorithms using the FPGAs from multiple vendors, especially Xilinx and Altera. The system also provides different features such as the choice of an FPGA device within a given family, choice of optimum synthesis and implementation options, scanning through multiple placement starting points, and post processing of implementation reports.