64-bit Block ciphers: hardware implementations and comparison analysis

A performance comparison for the 64-bit block cipher (Triple-DES, IDEA, CAST-128, MISTY1, and KHAZAD) FPGA hardware implementations is given in this paper. All these ciphers are under consideration from the ISO/IEC 18033-3 standard in order to provide an international encryption standard for the 64-bit block ciphers. Two basic architectures are implemented for each cipher. For the non-feedback cipher modes, the pipelined technique between the rounds is used, and the achieved throughput ranges from 3.0 Gbps for IDEA to 6.9 Gbps for Triple-DES. For feedback ciphers modes, the basic iterative architecture is considered and the achieved throughput ranges from 115 Mbps for Triple-DES to 462 Mbps for KHAZAD. The throughput, throughput per slice, latency, and area requirement results are provided for all the ciphers implementations. Our study is an effort to determine the most suitable algorithm for hardware implementation with FPGA devices.