Enabling Lattice-Based Post-Quantum Cryptography on the OpenTitan Platform

by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is just around the corner. The need for secure implementations is therefore increasing. In this work, we address this need and investigate the integration of lattice-based PQC into an open-source silicon root of trust (RoT), the OpenTitan. RoTs are important security building blocks that need to be future-proofed with PQC. The OpenTitan features multiple cryptographic hardware accelerators and countermeasures against physical attacks, but does not offer dedicated support for lattice-based PQC. Thus, we propose instruction set extensions for the OpenTitan Big Number Accelerator (OTBN) to improve the efficiency of polynomial arithmetic and sampling. As a case study we analyze the performance of signature verification of digital signature scheme Dilithium. Our implementation verifies signatures within 997,722 cycles for security level II, pushing this RoT functionality below 10 ms for the OpenTitan’s target frequency of 100 MHz. With an overhead of 242 kGE, our hardware extensions make up only about 5 % of the total RoT area. All our extensions integrate seamlessly with countermeasures against physical attacks and comply with the adversary model chosen by the OpenTitan project.      «

by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is just around the corner. The need for secure implementations is therefore increasing. In this work, we address this need and investigate the integration of lattice-based PQC into an open-source silicon root of trust (RoT), the OpenTitan. RoTs are important security building blocks that need to be future-proofed with PQC. The OpenTitan features multiple cryptographic hardware accelerators and countermeasures against physical att...     »