A Reconfigurable Processor for the Cryptographic nT Pairing in Characteristic 3

Recently, there have been many proposals for secure and novel cryptographic protocols that are built on bilinear pairings. The eta _T pairing is one such pairing and is closely related to the Tate pairing. In this paper we consider the efficient hardware implementation of this pairing in characteristic 3. All characteristic 3 operations required to compute the pairing are outlined in detail. An efficient, flexible and reconfigurable processor for the eta_T pairing in characteristic 3 is presented and discussed. The processor can easily be tailored for a low area implementation, for a high throughput implementation, or for a balance between the two. Results are provided for various configurations of the processor when implemented over the field F₃₉₇ on an FPGA