Super K: A Superscalar CRYSTALS KYBER Processor Based on Efficient Arithmetic Array

Security systems based on traditional cryptography mechanisms are at risk of being cracked by quantum computers in the future. CRYSTALS-KYBER (Kyber) as the NIST finalized lattice-based post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithm, will be widely used in public-key encryption scenarios. Although quantum-difficulty assumptions based on lattice math problems make Kyber quantum-resistant, how to effectively implement it into systems with different security needs remains a challenge. This work presents a dual-issue superscalar Kyber processor (Super-K) that supports customized RISC-V instruction-set architecture (ISA) and implements the key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) flexibly and efficiently. A reconfigurable polynomial arithmetic unit (PAU) is designed, which optimizes the compress/decompress process, and accelerates polynomial operations efficiently by optimal parallelism. The pipelining scheduling technique is used in Super-K to improve instruction level parallelism and reduce time consumption. Super-K is implemented on UltraScale+ FPGA platform and evaluated under SMIC 40nm technology, which achieves the fastest computational speed with the lowest power consumption and 1.4×/8.2× improvement in FPGA/ASIC AT product efficiency.