SWRA667 January   2020 CC1312PSIP , CC1312R , CC1314R10 , CC1352P , CC1352P7 , CC1352R , CC2642R , CC2642R-Q1 , CC2652P , CC2652R , CC2652R7 , CC2652RB , CC2652RSIP

 

  1.   Cryptographic Performance and Energy Efficiency on SimpleLink™ CC13x2/CC26x2 Wireless MCUs
    1.     Trademarks
    2. 1 Abbreviations and Acronyms
    3. 2 Introduction
    4. 3 Benefits of Cryptographic Acceleration in Embedded Security Solutions
    5. 4 TI Drivers for SimpleLink MCUs
      1. 4.1 Power Management Overview
      2. 4.2 Return Behavior
        1. 4.2.1 Runtime Overhead
      3. 4.3 Efficient Power Management
    6. 5 CC13x2/CC26x2 Crypto Peripherals
      1. 5.1 AES and Hash Crypto Accelerator
      2. 5.2 Public Key Accelerator
        1. 5.2.1 ECDH Power Management Driver Example
      3. 5.3 TRNG
    7. 6 Benchmarks
      1. 6.1 AES and Hash Crypto Accelerator Based Drivers
        1. 6.1.1 AES CBC
        2. 6.1.2 AES CCM
        3. 6.1.3 AES GCM
        4. 6.1.4 AES CTR DRBG
        5. 6.1.5 SHA-224
        6. 6.1.6 SHA-256
        7. 6.1.7 SHA-384
        8. 6.1.8 SHA-512
      2. 6.2 PKA Engine Based Drivers
        1. 6.2.1 ECDH
        2. 6.2.2 ECDSA
        3. 6.2.3 ECJPAKE
      3. 6.3 TRNG Based Drivers
        1. 6.3.1 TRNG
    8. 7 Conclusion
    9. 8 References
    10.     Appendix: Plots of Blocking vs Polling Performance

2 Introduction

Security in network connected systems has become increasingly critical. There is increased motivation for compromising network connected products over closed systems due to factors such as: a larger attack surface through remote and local access and the potential for successful attacks to leverage compromising nodes in the field into impacting large groups of persons or organizations in a significant way. Recent product exploits have demonstrated that security in network connected ecosystems is only as strong as the weakest link; thus, pushing for increased security, not just in gateways and servers but also in the end nodes, for strengthening the security of the entire system.

Security solutions are implemented across network components to mitigate security risks. Cryptography is a foundational component used in these security solutions that aid in protection of security assets (code, data, or keys) from adversaries. Cryptography is used to provide secrecy and integrity for data and enables both authentication and anonymity to entities involved in communication. Modern cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory and computer science practice and can impact the performance and energy consumption of resource-constrained embedded systems. Resource-constrained embedded systems typically refer to microcontrollers with limited hardware resources like CPU MIPS (millions of instructions per second) or memory. They are often powered from batteries and have specific battery-life requirements to meet.

The following sections discuss the benefits of cryptographic acceleration, followed by basic concepts of device power management and TI drivers for SimpleLink™ MCUs in the context of using cryptographic APIs for the development of security-focused applications. Next, the document covers benchmarking results for various cryptographic accelerators integrated in the SimpleLink CC13x2/CC26x2 family of wireless microcontrollers (MCUs). The benchmarking results show cryptographic performance and energy consumption using on-chip cryptographic accelerators compared to an Arm®Cortex®-M4F software-based implementation. In this benchmarking effort, we have used Arm mbed TLS software cryptographic functions to compare performance with on-chip cryptographic accelerators.