A secure cipher implementation suitable for RFID-tags

Hash resource required for RFID-tags chips, a secure and lightweight cipher implementation is proposed to solve the threat posed by differential power analysis (DPA). The proposed implementation is based on Piccolo cipher, in combination with the recently proposed masking method named threshold. Boolean equation rearrangement and improved exhaustive search method was respectively applied to S-Box and inverted S-Box to get their optimal area costs for threshold (3, 3) share. A method based on latch is proposed to resist the latent glitch threat. Based on Chartered 0.18 μm and 100 kHz operating frequency for RFID applications, the proposed cipher implementation costs as low as 2155 gate equivalents and consumes 2.60 μA average current. The security of the implementation is evaluated based on real power traces from an FPGA platform. DPA attack results show the proposed implementation with threshold countermeasure is suitable for secure low-cost passive RFID-tag ICs.