High-Speed Hardware Architectures and FPGA Benchmarking of CRYSTALS-Kyber, NTRU, and Saber

Abstract

Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) has emerged as a response of the cryptographic community to the danger of attacks performed using quantum computers. All PQC schemes can be implemented in software and hardware using conventional (non-quantum) computing systems. PQC is the biggest revolution in cryptography since the invention of public-key schemes in the mid-1970 s. Lattice-based key exchange schemes have emerged as leading candidates in the NIST PQC standardization process due to their relatively short public keys and ciphertexts. This paper presents novel high-speed hardware architectures for four lattice-based Key Encapsulation Mechanisms (KEMs) representing three NIST PQC finalists: NTRU (with two distinct variants, NTRU-HPS and NTRU-HRSS), CRYSTALS-Kyber, and Saber. We benchmark these candidates in terms of their performance and resource utilization in today's FPGAs. Our best architectures outperform the best designs from other groups reported to date in terms of the area-time product by factors ranging from 1.01 to 2.88, depending on the algorithm and security level. Additionally, our study demonstrates that CRYSTALS-Kyber and Saber have very similar hardware performance. Both outperform NTRU in terms of execution time by a factor 36-62 for key generation and 3-7 for decapsulation, assuming the same security level.