Security-Enabled Near-Field Communication Tag With Flexible

Architecture SupportingAsymmetric Cryptography

AliReza SargaziZadeGraduate University of Advanced Technology

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS, VOL. 21, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2013

Thomas Plos, Michael Hutter, Martin Feldhofer, Maksimiljan Stiglic, and Francesco Cavaliere

Introduction

CRYPYA Tag

Life Cycle of the Tag

Tag Architecture

Implementation Result

Conclusion

Introduction

• What is RFID ?

• Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID)

• Wireless communication and automatic

identification technology

ReaderPassive Tag3

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• What is NFC ?

• Near Field Communication (NFC)

• Standards-based on RFID , short-range wireless

connectivity technology

Introduction

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• Cryptographic Protected Tags for new RFID

Applications

• The security-enabled NFC tag supports strong

authentication Features :

• AES-128 symmetric cryptography

• Digital signing of data using the elliptic curve digital

signature algorithm (ECDSA) asymmetric cryptography

• Hashing of data using SHA-1

CRYPTA Tag

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• Standard Compliance :

• Is compliant with NFC Forum Type-4 specification

• Uses the ISO/IEC 14443A protocol standard for communication

• Basic tag functionality

• Advanced tag functionality :

• Security and file-management features and is based on a

block-transmission protocol.

CRYPTA Tag

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• 1- Tag Production

• 2- Personalization

• 3- User Application

Life Cycle of the CRYPTA Tag

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• Tag Production :

• Writes A unique identifier(UID) & temporary AES

key to the EEPROM.

• The UID is fixed.

• The temporary AES key is sent together with the

Tag to the product manufacturer.

Life Cycle of the CRYPTA Tag

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• Personalization :

• The temporary AES key is replaced with the one

selected by the product manufacturer.

• For ECDSA, a private key and a public-key

certificate are stored on the tag.

• finished by enabling a special lock bit.

Life Cycle of the CRYPTA Tag

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• User Application :

• Download Application from the web page of the

manufacturer.

• The application verifies the validity of the public-

key certificate on the tag.

Life Cycle of the CRYPTA Tag

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• Cryptographic Protected Tags for new

RFID Applications

CRYPTA Tag Architecture

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• Framing logic

CRYPTA Tag Architecture

The FL is connected to the Analog front-end.

provides a byte interface for the microcontroller.

handles low-level commands.

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• Framing Logic :

Tag Architecture

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• Microcontroller

CRYPTA Tag Architecture

program stored in an Internal read-only memory(ROM)

communicates via an Advanced microcontroller bus architecture

(AMBA) bus with The FL and the memory unit.

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• 8-bit Microcontroller :

• Low Chip area

• Low power consumption

• The microcontroller supports

31 instructions

Tag Architecture

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• Memory unit

CRYPTA Tag Architecture

Volatile memory (RAM) for storing temporary results

Nonvolatile memory (EEPROM) for permanently storing data in files

Read Only Memory (ROM) for storing constants

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• Cryptographic unit

CRYPTA Tag Architecture

Cryptographic operations :

signing of messages

encrypting of data

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• Crypto Unit :

Tag Architecture

19

AES

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• AREA OF CHIP COMPONENTS:• 21% : Analog front-end and the FL

• 19% : The microcontroller

• 15% : The CU

• 44% : The memory

Implementation Results

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• DISTRIBUTION OF ROM CODE :• 38% : CU , 766 instruction

•Instructions :

• 60% : control operations

• 10% : data-flow oriented operations

Implementation Results

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• In this paper :

• presented a flexible NFC-tag architecture that provides enhanced

security features using symmetric as well as asymmetric

cryptography.

• showed that significant resources can be saved by applying a

microcontroller-based architecture instead of using a finite-state

machine-based controlling.

Conclusion

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• Thomas Plos, Michael Hutter, Martin Feldhofer, Maksimiljan Stiglic, and Francesco Cavaliere,

“Security-Enabled Near-Field Communication Tag With

Flexible Architecture Supporting Asymmetric Cryptography”in

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS, VOL. 21, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2013

• Feldhofer, M., Dominikus, S., Wolkerstorfer, J.: “Strong Authentication for RFID

Systems Using the AES Algorithm”In: Joye, M., Quisquater, J.-J. (eds.) CHES

2004. LNCS, vol. 3156, pp. 357–370. Springer, Heidelberg (2004), http://

springerlink.metapress.com/content/26tmfjfcju58upb2/fulltext.pdf , doi:10.1007/b99451

• M. Hutter, M. Feldhofer, and J. Wolkerstorfer, “A cryptographic processor for

low-resource devices: Canning ECDSA and AES like

sardines,”in Information Security Theory and Practice. Security and Privacy of Mobile Devices in Wireless

Communication, vol. 6633. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2011, pp. 144–159

References

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