Enhancing the Hardware Pipelining Optimization Technique of the SHA-3 via FPGA

Information is transmitted between multiple insecure routing hops in text, image, video, and audio. Thus, this multi-hop digital data transfer makes secure transmission with confidentiality and integrity imperative. This protection of the transmitted data can be achieved via hashing algorithms. Furthermore, data integrity must be ensured, which is feasible using hashing algorithms. The advanced cryptographic Secure Hashing Algorithm 3 (SHA-3) is not sensitive to a cryptanalysis attack and is widely preferred due to its long-term security in various applications. However, due to the ever-increasing size of the data to be transmitted, an effective improvement is required to fulfill real-time computations with multiple types of optimization. The use of FPGAs is the ideal mechanism to improve algorithm performance and other metrics, such as throughput (Gbps), frequency (MHz), efficiency (Mbps/slices), reduction of area (slices), and power consumption. Providing upgraded computer architectures for SHA-3 is an active area of research, with continuous performance improvements. In this article, we have focused on enhancing the hardware performance metrics of throughput and efficiency by reducing the area cost of the SHA-3 for all output size lengths (224, 256, 384, and 512 bits). Our approach introduces a novel architectural design based on pipelining, which is combined with a simplified format for the round constant (RC) generator in the Iota (ι) step only consisting of 7 bits rather than the standard 64 bits. By reducing hardware resource utilization in the area and minimizing the amount of computation required at the Iota (ι) step, our design achieves the highest levels of throughput and efficiency. Through extensive experimentation, we have demonstrated the remarkable performance of our approach. Our results showcase an impressive throughput rate of 22.94 Gbps and an efficiency rate of 19.95 Mbps/slices. Our work contributes to advancing computer architectures tailored for SHA-3, therefore unlocking new possibilities for secure and high-performance data transmission.