Vesta Corporation Adds SHA-256 to Cryptography Accelerator

SANTA CLARA, California, August 29, 2003 – Vesta Corporation, an intellectual property and engineering consulting firm specializing in the communications industry, announced that it has added hardware acceleration for the SHA-256 algorithm to its cryptography accelerator RTL core, the VCA2.  The VCA2 supports all private key cryptography algorithms required for IPsec, 802.11, and other communications protocols, at processing speeds up to 1 Gbps.  Supported algorithms include DES, 3DES, AES, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and HMAC.

The VCA2 is ideally suited for network processors, DSL chips, 802.11 MAC chips, and SOCs for networking applications.  The VCA2 offloads compute-intensive cryptography processing from the main CPU.

Complementing the VCA2 is the Vesta Pseudo-Random Number Generator (VPRNG).  The VPRNG is seeded from either a time-based source, or from a true random number generator.  While true random number generators produce a stream of random 0’s and 1’s, they do not necessarily produce 0’s and 1’s with equal probability.  True random number generators typically have very low bandwidth as well.  By post-processing the output of a true random number generator through the VPRNG, a high bandwidth supply of cryptographically strong random data is available for key exchange protocols and other cryptographic applications.

In a related announcement, Vesta announced that the VMODEXP will be available in 4Q03. The VMODEXP is a synthesizable RTL core that accelerates modular exponentiation required for key exchanges, RSA, and other public key algorithms.  The VMODEXP is ideally suited for IPsec, SSL, 802.11 wireless access points, and networking SOCs that implement public key cryptography algorithms.

Companies interested in using the VCA2, VMODEXP, and VPRNG should contact Vesta Corporation for more information..

About Vesta Corporation

Vesta Corporation is a Santa Clara, CA based engineering consulting firm specializing in the communications industry.  Our staff has worked with companies such as Cerent Corporation, StratumOne Communications, Siara Systems, Amber Networks, ShareWave, Catamaran Communications, Cisco Systems, and many more.  In addition to providing engineering services, Vesta has developed its own Intellectual Property for IPsec and SONET applications, including RTL, software, and reference models.