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Instructions and hardware designs for accelerating SNOW 3G on a software-defined radio platform

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Abstract

Software-defined radio (SDR) is a new technology transitioning from research into commercial markets. SDR moves hardware-dominant baseband processing of multiple wireless communication protocols into software on a single chip. New cellular standards, such as HSPA+, LTE, and LTE+, require speeds in excess of 40 Mbps. SNOW 3G is a new stream cipher approved for use in these cellular protocols. Running SNOW 3G in software on our SDR platform provides a throughput of 19.1 Mbps per thread for confidentiality and 18.3 Mbps per thread for integrity. To have secure cellular communications in SDR platforms for these new protocols, the performance of security algorithms must be improved. This paper presents instruction set architecture (ISA) extensions and hardware designs for cellular confidentiality and integrity algorithms using SNOW 3G. Our ISA extensions and hardware designs are evaluated for the Sandbridge Sandblaster™ 3011 (SB3011) SDR platform. With our new SNOW 3G instructions, the performance of confidentiality and integrity improve by 70 and 2%, respectively. For confidentiality, power consumption increased by 2%, while energy decreased by 40%. For integrity, power consumption remained consistent, while energy decreased by 2%.

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Notes

  1. UEA2 = Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Encryption Algorithm 2. EEA1 = Evolved Packet System Encryption Algorithm 1.

  2. UIA2 = UMTS Integrity Algorithm 2. EIA1 = Evolved Packet System Integrity Algorithm 1.

  3. VRS3 is optional.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CNS-0640880. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of ECE, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 3632 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Dr, Madison, WI, 53713, USA

    Chris Jenkins & Michael Schulte

  2. AMD, Inc. AMD Research, 7171 Southwest Pkwy, Austin, TX, 78739, USA

    Michael Schulte

  3. Optimum Semiconductor Technologies, Inc., 120 White Plains Rd, 4th Floor, Tarrytown, NY, 10591, USA

    John Glossner

Authors
  1. Chris Jenkins
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  2. Michael Schulte
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  3. John Glossner
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Correspondence to Chris Jenkins.

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Jenkins, C., Schulte, M. & Glossner, J. Instructions and hardware designs for accelerating SNOW 3G on a software-defined radio platform. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 69, 207–218 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-011-9712-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-011-9712-8

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