Title: Crypto Hardware Design for Embedded Applications

Presenters: Dr. Amlan Chakrabarti1. and Mr. Suman Sau2

1
Visiting Research Associate, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University and Reader, A.K. Choudhury
School of Information Technology, University of Calcutta (On leave).
2
Visiting Researcher, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore and Research
Scholar, A.K. Choudhury School of Information Technology, University of Calcutta

1. Overview of the Talk

As communication networks were spreading deep into our everyday life, the need for secure communication
greatly enhanced cryptographic research. The need for fast but secure cryptographic systems is growing bigger. It is
widely recognized that higher speed of data communication and the needed data security will play a pivotal role in
the design of future IT systems. This merging of efficient communications and computation capability requires data
processing in real time, and embedded systems have shown to be good solutions for many applications. In general
embedded systems have constrained amount of resources and so execution of complex cryptography algorithms
require special design considerations. Therefore, dedicated hardware for cryptography is becoming a key issue for
designers. Programmable Logic Devices - mainly FPGAs – are frequently utilized in high speed and
computationally intensive applications, and with modern devices containing several million transistors and many
gigabits/second of connectivity they are becoming increasingly popular in the race to achieve exascale computing
power. With the spread of reconfigurable hardware such as FPGAs, hardware implementations of cryptographic
algorithms became cost-effective. FPGAs combine the programmability of processors with the performance of
custom hardware. Modern FPGAs can handle multiple functional cores and hence there exist a scope of
parallelization of the cryptographic algorithms. The present trends of exascale computing using FPGA devices
shows an increase in performance ~30X as well as lower power consumption compared to the execution of software
codes on standard processors.
This talk will give an insight to the present research trends on FPGA based crypto-hardware design for embedded
system applications, with an emphasis on multi-core and multi-processor based FPGA systems. Design
considerations for power efficient and fault-tolerant hardware architectures will also be discussed. The example
designs that will be presented as case studies will consist of some of the very recent published works.

2. Target audience
The ideal audience would be people from industry, research scholars, postgraduate and graduate students from
the branches of computer science, information technology, electronics and electrical engineering streams, having
concepts of embedded systems and a preliminary idea of cryptography. An audience number in the range of 40-50
is expected.
3. Content details
The key topics that will be covered in the tutorial are:

 Introduction to FPGA architecture.

 Key design considerations for crypto-hardware implementation on reconfigurable platform.
 Design and implementation of crypto algorithms using vendor specific soft-core and hard-core processors.
 Securing the memory.
 Enabling secured network communication between multiple FPGAs.
 Building custom crypto-core and multi-core based crypto-hardware implementations.
 Techniques for power optimization.
 Fault-tolerant design considerations
The approximate time of presentation will be 3 hrs.
.Presentation will be delivered in Microsoft PowerPoint which might have some multimedia content.
Software/Hardware demonstration will be done by the presenters and the needed tools will be brought by the
presenters on their own. If the auditorium is big more than one display screen for the audience will be excellent.

4. A Brief Bio of the Presenters

Dr. Amlan Chakrabarti is presently a Visiting Research Associate in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering,
Princeton University, New Jersey, U.S.A., he also holds a permanent position as a Reader in the A.K.Choudhury
School and of Information Technology, University of Calcutta, India. He is an M.Tech. and Ph.D (Tech.) from the
University of Calcutta, India, and has around 10 years experience combining his industrial, research and academic
activities. Prior to joining academics he was an electronic design and automation engineer in Orcad Inc. (presently
taken over by Cadence Design Systems), and has also served IIIT Kolkata and West Bengal University of
Technology as faculty member, prior to his present assignment in the University of Calcutta. He is a Sr. Member of
IEEE and also the recipient of the prestigious BOYSCAST award from the Department of Science and Technology,
Govt. of India, 2011, for his contributions to engineering research. He has obtained visiting research fellowship from
the premier intuitions like Princeton University, USA (2011-2012) and Buffalo State University at New York, USA
(2007) and also member of the International Collaboration of CBM-FAIR project led by GSI Helmholtz laboratory,
Germany in the projects related to embedded hardware design. He was also invited as the workshop leader in the
Digital Design track, in the popular industrial workshop NEPCON 2008, Penang Malaysia. He is a reviewer of IEEE
Transactions on Computers and Elsevier Simulation Modeling and Practice Theory. He has been the program
committee member of a number of international conferences and some of the recent ones are VDAT 2012, EAIT
2012, CISIM 2011, VLSI 2011, EAIT 2011, ReTIS 2011, ICDCN 2010. He has around 50 publications in
International Journals and Conference Proceedings. His present research interests are Quantum Computing,
Embedded System Design, VLSI design, and Video & Image Processing.

Mr. Suman Sau is presently a Research Assistant in the Dept. School of Computing, National University of
Singapore, Singapore. He is an M.Tech from the University of Calcutta, India, and has around 3 years experience
combining his research and academic activities. Currently he is a Ph.D Student under the guidance of Dr. Amlan
Chakrabarti. He has worked as one of the key researchers (DST Scholar) in the International collaborative project of
CBM-FAIR, led by the GSI Helmholtz laboratory, Germany, 2009-2011. He was invited by the GSI Helmholtz
laboratory, Germany as a Visiting Fellow in 2010. His research areas are Secured Data Communication for
Embedded Applications and Design of Embedded Multi-core Systems. He has 5 publications in reputed
International Conferences proceedings.
The publications and the presentations delivered by the authors allied to the tutorial topic are given as below:

Publications:

1. Suman Sau , Chandrajit Pal, Amlan Chakrabarti , “Design and implementation of real time secured
RS232 link for multiple FPGA communication”. Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on
Communication, Computing & Security, 12th -14th Feb-2011, NIT Rourkela

2. Rourab Paul, Sangeet Saha, Suman Sau , Amlan Chakrabarti , “Real Time Communication between
Multiple FPGA Systems in Multitasking Environment Using RTOS”.IEEE Explorer, ICDCS
(COIMBATORE),15-16th March,2012

3. Rourab Paul , Chandrajit Pal,Sangeet Saha, Suman Sau , “Novel architecture of Modular Exponent on
Reconfigurable System”. SCES2012.16-17th March IEEE Explorar.( .(paper is already selected, & waiting
for publication)

4. Rourab Paul, Sangeet Saha; Suman Sau; Amlan Chakrabarti, “Design And Implementation Of Real Time
Aes-128 On Real Time Operating System For Multiple Fpga Communication”. IEMCON2012.17th 18th
January, International Conference, ISSN: 2296-6611(IEEE Sponsored)

5. Rourab Paul, Suman Sau, Amlan Chakrabarti,  “Architecture For Real Time Continuous Sorting On
Large Width Data Volume For Fpga Based Applications”, IEEE Explorer, RASTM,2011,12-13th
November, Indore.

Presentations:

International
 A. Chakrabarti, “Advances in Electronic Design And Automation”, NEPCON 2008, Penang Malaysia, June
3, 2008.
 A. Chakrabarti, “Computer for Future Devices”, NEPCON 2008, Penang Malaysia, June 4, 2008.

National

1. A. Chakrabarti, “Crypto Implementation on Embedded Platforms”, Tutorial Workshop on Cryptology,

University of Calcutta, 17th April,2011
2. A. Chakrabarti, “Embedded Multicore- A designer's Challenge”, National Seminar on Embedded Systems,
GIET, Bhubaneswar, 15th April,2011.
3. A. Chakrabarti, VLSI Trends in Micro Architecture Past, Present and Future, National Seminar, Hoogly
Institute of Technology, 26th January, 2011.
4. A. Chakrabarti, “Implementation of Real Time Data Encryption Algorithms for FPGA Based Embedded
Applications”, National Seminar, Budge Budge Institute of Technology, West Bengal, 8th January, 2011.
5. A. Chakrabarti and S. Sau, “Development of Embedded Systems Design Using FPGA” ICCCT, 2010,
MNIT Allahabad.
6. A. Chakrabarti, “Embedded Systems for Real Time Image and Video Processing, UGC sponsored
Workshop on Image Processing and its Application in VLSI Circuits, Department of Electronics and
Telecommunication Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, March 25th ,2010.
7. A. Chakrabarti, “ FPGA based SOC Design”, Student Workshop, Institute of Engineering and
Management, Kolkata, India, March 10th , 2010.

8. A. Chakrabarti, “Advanced FPGA Design and Power Analysis”, Tutorial talk, Workshop on DSP &
Embedded System Design on Reconfigurable Hardware Platform, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology
Bangalore, India, 30th January, 2010.

9. A. Chakrabarti, “Introduction to DSP Designs on FPGA”, Tutorial talk, Workshop on DSP & Embedded
System Design on Reconfigurable Hardware Platform, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology Bangalore,
India, 31st January, 2010.

10. A. Chakrabarti, “Embedded Systems Design Using FPGA”, Tutorial Talk, Silver Jubilee Conference on
Communication Technologies and VLSI , Vellore Institute of Technology University, Chennai, India, 7th
October 2009.

11. A. Chakrabarti, “Architectural Design and Optimizations for VLSI Circuits”, 2 Day Workshop Program,
organized by Computer Society of India, Kolkata Chapter, 1st August, 2009.