RISC-V Summit 2022

In 2021 the lightweight Scalar Cryptography and Entropy Source extensions were ratified, aimed at RV32 and RV64 CPUs. This year the Vector Cryptography Extensions will be finished. These include Vector ISA extensions for efficiently performing AES, GHASH, SHA2, SM3, and SM4 cryptographic calculations using the large registers made available by the Vector Extension, mainly targeting higher-end systems like personal computers and servers, though they will also run efficiently on smaller vector machines with 128-bit or longer vector registers. These extensions include some vector bit-manipulation instructions that help optimize kernels based on the cryptographic instructions as well as supporting other algorithms such as prime- and binary-field ECC and SHA3, which is important for post-quantum cryptography. This talk reviews the Vector Cryptographic Extensions, the rationale behind them, and how they are used to efficiently implement cryptographic kernels.