Tsec – An ASIP for Post-Quantum Cryptography

In this video we present a case study that demonstrates the methodology to extend a RISC-V baseline model into an ASIP for Post-Quantum Cryptography.

Kyber, the first standardized key encryption mechanism designed to withstand attacks with future powerful quantum computers, is computationally very demanding due to extensive use of hashing, for example. In this case study, an ASIP optimized for accelerating Kyber was developed, starting from an open-source implementation compiled and profiled on a RISC-V base model with 2-issue VLIW and DSP extensions, and gradually adding architectural specializations that go beyond simple RISC-V extension mechanisms. The result of this moderate design effort is Tsec, an example ASIP with about 8x speed-up compared to the baseline, at 80% area increase.