FOBOS 3: an open-source platform for side-channel analysis and benchmarking

The lightweight cryptography (LWC) standardization process by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the US is the latest example of competitions that require benchmarking and side-channel leakage evaluation of hardware and software implementations of a multitude of candidate algorithms. A common hardware application programming interface (API) streamlines the development of a test harness. However, no existing platform is directly compatible with the LWC algorithms’ hardware interface. Hence, a significant effort is needed to evaluate and benchmark a large number of candidates. This paper presents an open-source, multi-user platform for side-channel analysis and benchmarking we call FOBOS 3. It contains its own measurement board (FOBOS Shield), target board (FBD-A7 with Xilinx Artix-7-A12 FPGA), and Multi-Target Connector (MTC) to use microcontroller boards from Texas Instruments and ST Microelectronics. It enables side-channel leakage evaluation as well as measurement of power and energy consumption on both: FPGA and microcontroller targets. Case studies are included to highlight these features.