Implementation of SIMD Instruction Set Extension for BLAKE2
V Ganesh, B. V. H. Sandilya · 2019
Hashing algorithms, the corner stone in a cryptographer's armory, are used in innumerable real life situations to protect critical information. The hashing function transforms the base information into an incomprehensible form. Such algorithms are also used for data integrity verification using checksums and quick retrieval of objects from a database. Some of the popular hashing algorithms are MD5, SHA-1, 2, 3. A hardware implementation of BLAKE2 is elaborated on, using custom SIMD instructions. These custom SIMD instructions correspond to vital steps in the computation of a BLAKE2 digest. Along with a slew of common arithmetic instructions - they coalesce into a 32-bit processor capable of carrying out BLAKE2 computations.