AN FPGA IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GPRS ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM 3 (GEA3)

Abstract

The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) uses the GPRS Encryption Algorithm 3 (GEA3) for data encryption. In this paper, alternative hardware implementations of the GEA3 algorithm are described. GEA3 algorithm is based on the KASUMI block cipher. Various KASUMI block cipher hardware implementations have been examined in order to provide information about the required silicon area and throughput. In order to achieve a significant performance improvement, Double Edge Triggered pipeline technique is used. The S-BOXes, which are fundamental elements of the KASUMI cipher, have been implemented by using combinational logic and ROM memories. The proposed GEA3 algorithm hardware implementation achieves throughput up to 837Mbps, which is much faster comparing to the previous designs. The whole system is implemented and evaluated by using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices.