Architectural Analysis of OpenSSL Crypto Algorithms for Network Processor

The wide spread adoption of the internet as a trusted medium of communication and commerce has made cryptography an essential component of modern information systems. So the performance of cryptographic communication applications on network processor has become an important topic of network processor system design. In this paper I compare and analyze the architectural characteristics of some wide spread cryptographic algorithms and their implementations through simulation on Simple Scalar, a MIPS like architecture. I have compared the instruction mix of the OpenSSL crypto algorithms with that of the SPEC95, CommBench and Average kind of algorithms. Also I have given a clear comparison of the average computational complexity per byte between the OpenSSL crypto algorithms and the others. Then considering 7 of these crypto algorithms (1 stream cipher type,3 block cipher type and 2 hash type) i have analyzed the impact of various cache sizes, different kind of branch predictions, different number of ALUs, and different Instruction fetch queue sizes. I find that memory system has a significant effect on overall performance. An ILP of 8,128 KB Instruction cache size and 32 KB Data cache size and direct mapping give better cryptographic operation for OpenSSL crypto algorithms. Cache replacement strategy doesn’t have an importance in overall performance.