FPGA Modeling and Optimization of a SIMON Lightweight Block Cipher

Area of Science:

• Cryptography and Hardware Security
• Embedded Systems Design
• Energy-Efficient Computing

Background:

• Sensitive data security is crucial for ubiquitous low-resource devices (LRDs).
• Lightweight block ciphers balance security with minimal resource overhead for LRDs.
• SIMON is a hardware-targeted lightweight block cipher.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement, optimize, and model the SIMON cipher for LRDs.
• To emphasize energy and power consumption as critical metrics.
• To evaluate different design implementations on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs).

Main Methods:

• Implementation and optimization of SIMON cipher designs.
• Examination of scalar and pipelined architectural implementations.
• Performance analysis focusing on resource utilization, power, energy, and throughput using FPGA technology.

Main Results:

• Scalar implementations used 39% fewer resources and 45% less power than pipelined ones.
• Pipelined implementations achieved 12x higher throughput but consumed 31% less energy.
• A two-round pipelined design was the most energy-efficient, consuming 31% of the best scalar's energy.

Conclusions:

• The two-round pipelined implementation is optimal for continuous data streams, balancing energy and area.
• One-round and two-round scalar implementations are recommended for intermittent data applications.
• Design choices significantly impact energy efficiency and performance for LRDs.