Dr. Christophe Doche

Macquarie University

Title: Redundant trinomials for finite fields of characteristic 2


In this talk we introduce so-called redundant trinomials to represent elements of finite fields of characteristic 2. After recalling well-known techniques to perform efficient arithmetic in extensions of GF(2), we describe redundant trinomial bases and discuss how to implement them efficiently. They are well suited to build GF(2^d) when no irreducible trinomial exists and one has to choose an irreducible pentanomial. Tests with NTL show that improvements for squaring and exponentiation are respectively up to 45% and 25% when compared to a representation based on pentanomials. More attention is given to extension degrees relevant for elliptic and hyperelliptic curve cryptography. For this range, a scalar multiplication can be speeded up by a factor up to 15%.