[2212] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DES, MMX, and FPGAs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sinster@darkwater.com)
Fri Feb 27 14:55:23 1998
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:51:06 -0800 (PST)
To: cryptography@c2.net
In-reply-to: <199802271406.IAA13153@spirit.aud.alcatel.com>
(Dan.Oelke@aud.alcatel.com)
From: sinster@darkwater.com
> Does anyone know of a commercially available FPGA board
> that can be plugged into your PC? Some of the FPGA companies
> have a few demos that they loan to schools, etc. but it seems
> hard to find them on the general market.
The best way to buy this kind of stuff is to phone the manufacturer,
and ask for some distributors in your area. Then buy the board from
the distributor. Usually the magic phrase you want to use is
"development kit", but it varies with the manufacturer. You might
need to open a business account with the distributor, but that's easy
enough to do. But you aren't going to find these programming kits for
sale through Radio Shack: you're looking for people more like All
American, and Hamilton Hallmark, &c.
And most of those programming kits plug into PCs. In fact, you're
prolly stuck with a PC and DOS (not windows) for that stuff. Though
last time I was at a Xilinx propaganda show, I seem to remember they
were offering their stuff for both Solaris 2.x and Windows.
Another possibility is the MOSIS IC fabrication service. They do full
custom ICs. For ~US$2000, you can get a 'tiny-chip' fabbed. That gives you
6 packaged dies off your design. 40 pin package with a fixed frame. The
die is 1mm by 2mm, and is (last I checked) a 1um CMOS process with 2
metallization layers. We used them to fab stuff when I was in college
learning VLSI design. A pointer to their ftp site is included with
the Magic VLSI design software (freeware you can grab off gatekeeper...
good stuff).
It should be trivial to come up with a full-custom CMOS DES implementation.
Especially if the report posted to this list about ~78,000 transistors for
the circuit is accurate. A systolic array implementation would prolly
be best.
--
Jon Paul Nollmann ne' Darren Senn sinster@darkwater.com
Unsolicited commercial email will be archived at $1/byte/day.
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the
people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent
and sudden usurpations." James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788
