Design of Cryptographic Primitives for Wireless Communication and Blockchain Mining

Abstract

The rising reliance on the internet across various sectors has heightened the importance of security measures, given the potential threat posed by cyber attackers who could corrupt or misuse data. This thesis explores the implementation of diverse cryptographic algorithms—DES, RSA, AES, ECC, and ECCDH—on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). In secure wireless communications, stream ciphers are preferred for their hardware mplementation simplicity. The design of stream ciphers generally involves using a pseudorandom number generator to produce a keystream, which masks the plaintext through a XOR operation, resulting in cipher text. This research presents the realization of these designs using Verilog Hardware Description Language and their implementation on FPGA. Experimental results indicate that a modified SNOW 2.0 architecture is 13% more resource-efficient and 19% more efficient overall compared to the traditional SNOW 2.0, and 104% more efficient than existing architectures. Security is paramount in electronic communication, particularly in wireless networks like LTE, where cryptographic algorithms are vital for protecting sensitive data. While software implementations are straightforward, they often lack the speed required for real-time communication devices, necessitating hardware implementations of cryptographic processors. This thesis introduces a novel SNOW3G crypto processor for 4G LTE security, optimized for area, power, and efficiency. Implemented on the Zynq ZC702 FPGA, this design uses only 0.31% of available area and achieves significant efficiency and low power consumption, making it suitable for mobile devices.