FPGA implementations of the Hummingbird cryptographic algorithm

Abstract

Hummingbird is a new ultra-lightweight cryptographic algorithm targeted for resource-constrained devices like RFID tags, smart cards, and wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, we describe efficient hardware implementations of a stand-alone Hummingbird component in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) devices. We implement an encryption only core and an encryption/decryption core on the low-cost Xilinx FPGA series Spartan-3 and compare our results with other reported lightweight block cipher implementations on the same series. Our experimental results highlight that in the context of low-cost FPGA implementation Hummingbird has favorable efficiency and low area requirements.