High-Performance FPGA Implementations of Lightweight ASCON-128 and ASCON-128a with Enhanced Throughput-to-Area Efficiency


Malal A.

17th International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology, Ankara, Türkiye, 16 - 17 Ekim 2024, (Tam Metin Bildiri) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1109/isctrkiye64784.2024.10779273
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Ankara
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

The ASCON algorithm was chosen for its efficiency and suitability for resource-constrained environments such as IoT devices. In this paper, we present a high-performance FPGA implementation of ASCON-128 and ASCON-128a, optimized for the throughput-to-area ratio. By utilizing a 6-round permutation in one cycle for ASCON-128 and a 4-round permutation in one cycle for ASCON-128a, we have effectively maximized throughput while ensuring efficient resource utilization. Our implementation shows significant improvements over existing designs, achieving 34.16% better throughput-to-area efficiency on Artix-7 and 137.58% better throughput-to-area efficiency on Kintex-7 FPGAs. When comparing our results on the Spartan-7 FPGA with Spartan-6, we observed a 98.63% improvement in throughput-to-area efficiency. However, it is important to note that this improvement may also be influenced by the advanced capabilities of the Spartan-7 platform compared to the older Spartan-6, in addition to the design optimizations implemented in this work.