Patent ID: 7508936

Claim:
An elliptic curve processing apparatus comprising a plurality of functional units; wherein at least one of the plurality of functional units is configured to perform at least one operation on elliptic curves specified over binary polynomial fields; and wherein at least one of the plurality of functional units comprises a digit serial multiplier with a digit size of at least two bits, wherein the digit serial multiplier is configured to: perform a multiplication step of the at least one operation for one or more named curves, wherein each named curve implicitly specifies an irreducible polynomial to be used in a reduction step of the at least one operation; perform a partial reduction operation for a generic curve using an arbitrary irreducible polynomial to produce an intermediate reduction result, the arbitrary irreducible polynomial corresponding to the generic curve having been explicitly specified for the at least one operation on the generic curve; and provide one or more of: a result of the multiplication step and the intermediate reduction result as an input to an elliptic curve cryptography application.