An ASIC implementation of low power and high throughput blowfish crypto algorithm

Information security has always been important in all aspects of life. It can be all the more important as technology continues to control various operations in our day to day life. Cryptography provides a layer of security in cases, where the medium of transmission is susceptible to interception, by translating a message into a form that cannot be read by an unauthorized third party. Several software implementations of blowfish crypto algorithms are described in the literature, but few attempts have been made to describe hardware implementations. The ultimate objective of the research presented in this paper is to develop low-power, high-throughput, real-time, reliable and secure crypto algorithm, which can be achieved through hardware implementations. The blowfish crypto algorithm is prototyped in 130 nm custom integrated circuit. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.