Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?

In ToSC 2025(1), Jia et al. proposed an SAT-aided automatic search tool for the S-box design. A part of the functionality of this tool is to search for implementations of an S-box with good area and gate-depth complexity. However, it is well-known that the gate depth complexity cannot precisely ref...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yu Sun, Lixuan Wu, Chenhao Jia, Tingting Cui, Kai Hu, Meiqin Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ruhr-Universität Bochum 2025-06-01
Series:IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/ToSC/article/view/12248
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1850210599934361600
author Yu Sun
Lixuan Wu
Chenhao Jia
Tingting Cui
Kai Hu
Meiqin Wang
author_facet Yu Sun
Lixuan Wu
Chenhao Jia
Tingting Cui
Kai Hu
Meiqin Wang
author_sort Yu Sun
collection DOAJ
description In ToSC 2025(1), Jia et al. proposed an SAT-aided automatic search tool for the S-box design. A part of the functionality of this tool is to search for implementations of an S-box with good area and gate-depth complexity. However, it is well-known that the gate depth complexity cannot precisely reflect the latency of an implementation. To overcome this problem, Rasoolzadeh introduced the concept of latency complexity, a more precise metric for the latency cost of implementing an S-box than the gate depth complexity in the real world. In this addendum, we adapt Jia et al.’s tool to prioritize latency as the primary metric and area as the secondary metric to search for good implementations for existing S-boxes. The results show that the combination of Jia et al.’s tool and Rasoolzadeh’s latency complexity can lead to lower-latency S-box implementations. For S-boxes used in LBlock, Piccolo, SKINNY-64, RECTANGLE, PRESENT and TWINE, which are popular targets in this research line, we find new implementations with lower latency. We conducted synthesis comparisons of the area and latency under multiple standard libraries, where our results consistently outperformed in terms of latency. For example, for LBlock-S0, our solution reduces latency by around 50.0% ∼ 73.8% compared to previous implementations in TSMC 90nm library with the latency-optimized synthesis option.
format Article
id doaj-art-eae2dcee5ed0458d82169717953694af
institution OA Journals
issn 2519-173X
language English
publishDate 2025-06-01
publisher Ruhr-Universität Bochum
record_format Article
series IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology
spelling doaj-art-eae2dcee5ed0458d82169717953694af2025-08-20T02:09:44ZengRuhr-Universität BochumIACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology2519-173X2025-06-012025210.46586/tosc.v2025.i2.192-205Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?Yu Sun0Lixuan Wu1Chenhao Jia2Tingting Cui3Kai Hu4Meiqin Wang5School of Cyber Science and Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, China; Quan Cheng Laboratory, Jinan, ChinaSchool of Cyber Science and Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, China; State Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Digital Economy Security, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, ChinaSchool of Cyber Science and Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, China; Quan Cheng Laboratory, Jinan, China; State Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Digital Economy Security, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China; Key Laboratory of Cryptologic Technology and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong University, Jinan, ChinaSchool of Cyber Science and Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, China; State Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Digital Economy Security, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China; Key Laboratory of Cryptologic Technology and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong University, Jinan, China In ToSC 2025(1), Jia et al. proposed an SAT-aided automatic search tool for the S-box design. A part of the functionality of this tool is to search for implementations of an S-box with good area and gate-depth complexity. However, it is well-known that the gate depth complexity cannot precisely reflect the latency of an implementation. To overcome this problem, Rasoolzadeh introduced the concept of latency complexity, a more precise metric for the latency cost of implementing an S-box than the gate depth complexity in the real world. In this addendum, we adapt Jia et al.’s tool to prioritize latency as the primary metric and area as the secondary metric to search for good implementations for existing S-boxes. The results show that the combination of Jia et al.’s tool and Rasoolzadeh’s latency complexity can lead to lower-latency S-box implementations. For S-boxes used in LBlock, Piccolo, SKINNY-64, RECTANGLE, PRESENT and TWINE, which are popular targets in this research line, we find new implementations with lower latency. We conducted synthesis comparisons of the area and latency under multiple standard libraries, where our results consistently outperformed in terms of latency. For example, for LBlock-S0, our solution reduces latency by around 50.0% ∼ 73.8% compared to previous implementations in TSMC 90nm library with the latency-optimized synthesis option. https://ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/ToSC/article/view/12248S-boxlow-latencyautomatic searchSAT
spellingShingle Yu Sun
Lixuan Wu
Chenhao Jia
Tingting Cui
Kai Hu
Meiqin Wang
Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology
S-box
low-latency
automatic search
SAT
title Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
title_full Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
title_fullStr Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
title_full_unstemmed Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
title_short Addendum to How Small Can S-boxes Be?
title_sort addendum to how small can s boxes be
topic S-box
low-latency
automatic search
SAT
url https://ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/ToSC/article/view/12248
work_keys_str_mv AT yusun addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe
AT lixuanwu addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe
AT chenhaojia addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe
AT tingtingcui addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe
AT kaihu addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe
AT meiqinwang addendumtohowsmallcansboxesbe