SCOB, a soft-core for the Blowfish cryptographic algorithm

Abstract

Data security is an important issue in today's computer networks. Several emerging applications require secure data channels over open networks. At the same time, the bandwidth of data channels is rapidly increasing, as demonstrated by current ATM networks. In this scenario, data communication products now have to incorporate high-performance security devices. This paper presents SCOB, a soft-core implementation of the Blowfish cryptographic algorithm. This soft-core is oriented towards applications demanding a high throughput and exploits both the spatial and the temporal parallelism available in the Blowfish algorithm. An ASIC implementation of SCOB in 0.7 /spl mu/m two-metal layer CMOS technology, reaches up to 266 Mbps at 66 MHz, while an FPGA implementation provided up to 40 Mbps at 10 MHz.