Hardware implementation of an elliptic curve processor over GF(p) with Montgomery modular multiplier

Abstract

This paper describes a hardware implementation of an arithmetic processor which is efficient for bit-lengths suitable for both commonly used types of Public Key Cryptography, i.e., Elliptic Curve (EC) and RSA Cryptosystems. Montgomery modular multiplication in a systolic array architecture is used for modular multiplication. The processor consists of special operational blocks for Montgomery modular multiplication, modular addition/subtraction, EC Point doubling/addition, modular multiplicative inversion, EC point multiplier, projective to affine coordinates conversion and Montgomery to normal representation conversion.