SAM L11 Cryptographic Accelerator (CRYA)

Cryptographic Accelerator (CRYA) Overview

SAM L11 embeds a hardware CRYA with associated software functions stored in Boot ROM, which provides the hardware acceleration for the following:

  • Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 197, Advanced Encryption Standard.
    • Encryption with a 128-bit cryptographic key.
    • Decryption with a 128-bit cryptographic key.
  • Secure Hash Standard (SHA): FIPS Publication 180-4, The Secure Hash Standard.
    • Accelerates message schedule and inner compression loop.
  • Galois/Counter Mode (GCM): National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-38D Recommendation.
    • Accelerates the Galois Field (GF) (2128) multiplication for AES-GCM hash function.

CRYA Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

The CRYA APIs which are located in a dedicated Boot ROM area are only accessible from the user application after the Boot ROM has completed. This area is an execute-only area, meaning the CPU cannot do any loads but can call the APIs. The Boot ROM memory space is a secure area, meaning only the secure application can directly call these APIs.

saml10-crypto-accelerator_1.png
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All 8-bit pointers from CRYA API functions must be 32-bit aligned.

AES API

The AES software has two function routines to do encryption and decryption on a 128-bit block of input data. The AES encryption function entry point is located at the Boot ROM address 0x02001904 and the encryption function parameters are:

  • Src[in]: a pointer to a 128-bit data block to be encrypted.
  • Dst[out]: a pointer to 128-bit encrypted data.
  • Keys[in]: a pointer to a 128-bit key.
  • Length[in]: number of 32-bit words comprising the key, four for 128-bits key.


The AES decryption function entry point is located at the Boot ROM address 0x02001908 and the decryption function parameters are:

  • Src[in]: a pointer to a 128-bit data block to be decrypted.
  • Dst[out]: a pointer to 128-bit decrypted data.
  • Keys[in]: a pointer to a 128-bit key.
  • Length[in]: number of 32-bit words comprising the key, four for 128-bits key.


The APIs are:

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SHA API and Example of a Function

The SHA software function can update the hash value based on the 512-bit data. It is assumed that the message is already preprocessed properly for the SHA algorithm so that the SHA software can work directly on 512-bit portions.

The SHA function entry point is located at the Boot ROM address 0x02001900 and has three parameters:

  • [In/out]: a pointer to a hash location (hash input and output).
  • [In]: a pointer to a 512-bit data block.
  • [In]: a pointer to a RAM buffer (256B is needed for the internal algorithm.) The updated hash value is put as the first parameter after the function exit.


The API is:

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GCM API

The GCM function entry point is located at the Boot ROM address 0x0200190C and the function parameters are:

  • Block1[in]: a pointer to 128-bit data blocks that are to be multiplied.
  • Block2[in]: a pointer to 128-bit data blocks that are to be multiplied.
  • Dst[out]: a pointer to a location for storing the result.


The API is:

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To get more information on how to implement GCM, refer to the SAM L11 Security Reference Guide Application Note

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