Uniformly-Switching Logic for Cryptographic Hardware

Recent work on Differential Power Analysis shows that even mathematically-secure cryptographic protocols may be vulnerable at the physical implementation level. By measuring energy consumed by a working digital circuit, one can glean enough information to break encryption. Thwarting such attacks requires a new approach to logic and physical design. In this work, we seek to equalize switching activity of a circuit over all possible inputs and input transitions by adding redundant gates and increasing the overall number of signal transitions. We introduce uniformly-switching (U-S) logic, and present a doubling construction that equalizes power dissipation without requiring drastic changes in CAD tools.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: DATE
• Authors: Igor L. Markov, Dmitri Maslov
• Keywords: DATE 2005, Hardware, Input Transitions, Mathematically-secure Cryptographic Protocols, Physical Implementation Level