Analysis of Pipelined KATAN Ciphers under Handle-C for FPGAs

Embedded Systems are everywhere from the smartphones we hold in our hands to the satellites that hover around the earth. These embedded systems are being increasingly integrated into our personal and commercial infrastructures. More than 98% of all processors are implanted and used in embedded systems rather than traditional computers. As a result, security in embedded systems now more than ever has become a major concern. Since embedded systems are designed to be low-cost, fast and real-time, it would be appropriate to use tiny, lightweight and highly secure cryptographic algorithms. KATAN and KATANTAN family of light-weight block ciphers are promising cryptographic options. In this paper, a sequential hardware design is developed under Handel-C. Taking a step further, Handel-C's parallel construct is taken advantage of to develop a parallel-pipelined hybrid implementation. Both sequential and parallel-pipelined implementations are tested under Altera Quartus to implement and analyze hardware designs in conjunction with DK Design Suite's Handel-C compiler. The developed designs are mapped to Altera's Stratix II that is one of the industry's highest bandwidth and density FPGAs. The results confirm that using Handel-C can provide faster implementations. The obtained results are promising and show better performance when compared with similar implementations - specifically the developed parallel-pipelined processor.