DPA-Secured Quasi-Adiabatic Logic (SQAL) for Low-Power Passive RFID Tags Employing S-Boxes

Abstract

Low-power mobile devices such as RFID tags and WSNs that employ AES cryptographic modules are susceptible to differential power analysis (DPA) attacks. This paper presents a novel secured quasi-adiabatic logic (SQAL) technology that is both low-power and DPA immune. The efficiency of the SQAL technology was evaluated on an 8-bit AES-128 SBOX block and proved to be robust against DPA attacks. Compared to other adiabatic and non-adiabatic logic styles, the SQAL technology achieves better results in terms of power consumption and area overhead.