Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) relies upon the difficulty of the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP) and was proposed by Miller and Koblitz in 1985. The advantages of ECC over classical cryptosystems like RSA/Diffie-Hellman (D-H) include higher speed, lower power consumption, less bandwidth, and less storage requirements. The CLP-17 offloads the computationally difficult aspects of Elliptic Curve calculation and can be tailored to the application with build options that span low power hand-held requirements to high-performance designs for Ethernet passive optical networking (EPON) systems.
The Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) is a method based on the Discrete Logarithm Problem over points on an Elliptic curve. ECC has so far shown no weakness and as such several algorithms have been created primarily in asymmetric or public-key cryptography for key exchange and digital signature applications. The most common algorithms are:
- Public Key - Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman Key Exchange (EC-DHKE)
- Public Key - Elliptic Curve ElGamal (EC-ElGamal)
- Digital Signature - Elliptic Curve Digital Signature (EC-DSA)
A fundamental operation to each of these algorithms is a point multiplication which places a significant load on the embedded processor. This is the operation which is offloaded by the CLP-17.