Public key accelerator (PKA) RM0453
696/1454 RM0453 Rev 2
24 Public key accelerator (PKA)
24.1 Introduction
PKA (public key accelerator) is intended for the computation of cryptographic public key
primitives, specifically those related to RSA, Diffie-Hellmann or ECC (elliptic curve
cryptography) over GF(p) (Galois fields). To achieve high performance at a reasonable cost,
these operations are executed in the Montgomery domain.
All needed computations are performed within the accelerator, so no further
hardware/software elaboration is needed to process the inputs or the outputs.
24.2 PKA main features
• Acceleration of RSA, DH and ECC over GF(p) operations, based on the Montgomery
method for fast modular multiplications. More specifically:
– RSA modular exponentiation, RSA Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT)
exponentiation
– ECC scalar multiplication, point on curve check
– ECDSA signature generation and verification
• Capability to handle operands up to 3136 bits for RSA/DH and 640 bits for ECC.
• Arithmetic and modular operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication,
modular reduction, modular inversion, comparison, and Montgomery multiplication.
• Built-in Montgomery domain inward and outward transformations.
• AMBA AHB slave peripheral, accessible through 32-bit word single accesses only
(otherwise, for writes, an AHB bus error is generated, and write accesses are ignored).
24.3 PKA functional description
24.3.1 PKA block diagram
Figure 127 shows the block diagram of the public key accelerator PKA.
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