Hardware-Software Co-Design of AES-CCM for Bluetooth LE Security

AES-CCM (Advanced Encryption Standard-Counter with CBC-MAC) is an encryption and decryption method that guarantees the integrity and authenticity of data, commonly used for wireless security systems. The AES Core performs the central functions for encryption and decryption of the AES-CCM, so many studies are being conducted to implement it efficiently. In this paper, to investigate the impact of the hardware-software partitioning of the AES-CCM implementation for Bluetooth LE (Low Energy), we compare the results between the software-only implementation and hardware-software co-design approach where the AES encryption into the hardware and the rest into the software. As a result, a well-balanced co-design implementation of the AES-CCM shows a reduced latency of up to 77.4% compared to the software-only implementation for the Bluetooth LE system.