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Energy-Architecture Tuning for ECC-Based RFID Tags

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Radio Frequency Identification (RFIDSec 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8262))

Abstract

The implementation of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) on small microcontrollers is challenging. Past research has therefore emphasized performance optimization: pick a target architecture, and minimize the cycle count and footprint of the ECC software. This paper addresses a different aspect of resource-constrained ECC implementation: given the application profile, identify the most suitable architecture parameters. At the highest level, an application profile for ECC-based RFID tags is defined by the required security level, signature generation latency and the available energy/power budget. The target architecture parameters of interest include core-voltage, core-frequency, and/or the need for hardware acceleration. The paper brings two contributions to this complex design space exploration problem. First, we introduce a prototype setup for the precise energy measurement of a microcontroller-based ECC implementation. Second, we present a methodology to derive and optimize the architecture parameters starting from the application requirements. We demonstrate our methodology on a MSP430F5438A microcontroller, and present the energy/architecture design space for 80-bit and 128-bit security-levels, for prime field curves secp160r1 and nistp256.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported in part through NIST, Grant no. 60NANB10D004.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Secure Embedded Systems, Center for Embedded Systems for Critical Applications, Bradley Department of ECE, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Deepak Mane & Patrick Schaumont

Authors
  1. Deepak Mane
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  2. Patrick Schaumont
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Correspondence to Deepak Mane .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität Graz, Graz, Austria

    Michael Hutter

  2. Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria

    Jörn-Marc Schmidt

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Mane, D., Schaumont, P. (2013). Energy-Architecture Tuning for ECC-Based RFID Tags. In: Hutter, M., Schmidt, JM. (eds) Radio Frequency Identification. RFIDSec 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8262. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41332-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41332-2_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-41331-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-41332-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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