A unified, configurable architecture implementing block cipher operational modes

Data encryption and authentication are mandatory for any type of communication. Data transmission over the Internet and wireless networks is being threatened by persistent threats and eavesdropping. We propose reconfigurable, high throughput multi-mode block cipher architecture. The proposed architecture has the ability to encrypt/decrypt a pliantext/ ciphertext efficiently using ECB, CBC, CFB, OFB, CTR, CBC-MAC, CCM, or PMAC mode. We implemented the proposed architecture on Xilinx xc2v4000-6bf957 and tested it using the most widely used block ciphers. The proposed architecture is compared to the implementation of simplest mode Electronic Code Book (ECB) based on area and speed. The extra area required for the proposed architecture ranges from 1.6% to 18.4% whereas the extra delay ranges from 0% to 7%.