A universal VLSI architecture for bit-parallel computation in GF(2m)

An universal VLSI architecture for bit-parallel computation in GF(2^m) is presented. The proposed architecture is based on Montgomery multiplication algorithm, which is suitable for multiple class of GF(2^m) with arbitrary field degree m. Due to the highly regular and modular property, our proposed universal architecture can meet VLSI design requirement. After implemented by 0.18μm 1P6M process, our universal architecture can work successfully at 125MHz clock rate. For the finite field multiplier, the total gate count is 1.4K for GF(2^m) with any irreducible polynomial of field degree m≤8, whereas the inverse operation can be achieved by the control unit with gate count of 0.3K.