Error Detection for Borrow-Save Adders Dedicated to ECC Unit

Differential Fault Analysis (DFA) is a real threat for elliptic curve cryptosystems. This paper describes an elliptic curve cryptoprocessor unit resistant against fault injection. This resistance is provided by the use of parity preserving logic gates in the operating structure of the ECC unit, which is based on borrow-save adders. The proposed countermeasure provides a high coverage fault detection and induces an acceptable area overhead (+ 38 %).