Analysis of GF (2m) Multiplication Algorithm: Classic Method v/s Karatsuba-Ofman Multiplication Method

Abstract

In recent years, finite field multiplication in GF(2m) has been widely used in various applications such as error correcting codes and cryptography. One of the motivations for fast and area efficient hardware solution for implementing the arithmetic operation of binary multiplication , in finite field GF (2m), comes from the fact, that they are the most time-consuming and frequently called operations in cryptography and other applications. So, the optimization of their hardware design is critical for overall performance of a system. Since a finite field multiplier is a crucial unit for overall performance of cryptographic systems, novel multiplier architectures, whose performances can be chosen freely, is necessary. In this paper, two Galois field multiplication algorithms (used in cryptography applications) are considered to analyze their performance with respect to parameters viz. area, power, delay, and the consequent Area×Time (AT) and Power×Delay characteristics. The objective of the analysis is to find out the most efficient GF(2m) multiplier algorithm among those considered.