Arm Cryptographic Extension

Introduction

The Arm Cortex‑A720AE core includes the support for Arm Cryptographic Extension. The extension adds a set of architecture-defined instructions that implement common cryptographic algorithms directly in hardware. Refer to Arm Cryptographic Extension support in the Cortex®‑A720AE core for more details of the extension.

HTTPS connection demo

The reference design provides a demo to show how the Arm Cryptographic Extension can be utilized in a real-world application scenario with OpenSSL.

OpenSSL supports various features of the Arm Cryptographic Extension. See the OpenSSL section of the Security Library Projects for the algorithms that OpenSSL supports with using the extension: Security Library Projects.

In the demo, an HTTPS connection is established with OpenSSL. The Arm Cryptographic Extension is involved in the data ciphering.

The following diagram illustrates how the demo works:


Crypto Extension OpenSSL

Fig. 30 Crypto Extension OpenSSL


Explanation:

  • The demo shows a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection between a server and a client.

  • The data transferred between the server and the client is encrypted.

  • While transferring the data, the server encrypts the data with a specified algorithm supported in Arm Cryptography Extension. The client decrypts it.

  • Both the server and the client use OpenSSL libraries which support Arm Cryptography Extension.

The demo also contains instructions showing how to disable the usage of Arm Cryptography Extension with OpenSSL.

For more details on how to run the demo, see Arm Cryptographic Extension demo.