High-Throughput Bilinear Pairing Processor for Server-Side FPGA Applications

Abstract

This study focuses on the acceleration of cryptographic pairing operations on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for server-side applications. Previous studies on FPGA pairing implementations focused on area efficiency for embedded devices, trying to achieve maximum performance with minimal circuit resources. However, their architectures are likely to be inefficient for server-side applications, where the primary interest is maximum performance when FPGA resources are finished. Their architectures are inefficient for two reasons: low utilization of the digital signal processor (DSP) and low operation frequency. In this study, we propose a high-throughput pairing processor architecture for server-side FPGAs, taking full advantage of DSPs. First, we propose a loop-unrolled modular multiplication algorithm that is suitable for a server-side FPGA. The algorithm shows the highest throughput and area efficiency compared to algorithms from previous studies. Second, we design a pairing processor architecture that embeds the proposed modular multiplier, thus, maintaining its high throughput by supporting redundant adders and interleaved executions. We evaluate BN254 and BLS12_381 pairings on the proposed processor architecture and the evaluation results show that it achieves good throughput that is approximately two and five times faster than that from previous studies, respectively.