Cryptographic accelerator

In computing, a cryptographic accelerator is a co-processor designed specifically to perform computationally intensive cryptographic operations, doing so far more efficiently than the general-purpose CPU. Because many servers' system load consists mostly of cryptographic operations, this can greatly increase performance.

Sun Microsystems PCI cryptographiphic accelerator (2002)

Intel's AES-NI is by far the most common cryptographic accelerator in commodity hardware. VIA PadLock is another recent example.

Operating system support

Several operating systems provide some support for cryptographic hardware. The BSD family of systems has the OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework (OCF), Linux systems have the Crypto API, Solaris OS has the Solaris Cryptographic Framework (SCF) and Microsoft Windows has the Microsoft CryptoAPI.

Some cryptographic accelerators offer new machine instructions and can therefore be used directly by programs. Libraries such as OpenSSL and LibreSSL support some such cryptographic accelerators.

Almost all Unix-like operating systems use OpenSSL or the fork LibreSSL as their cryptography library. These libraries use cryptographic accelerators such as AES-NI if available.

gollark: This is why all are to osmarkscalculator™, if I ever learn enough hardware things™, finalize the design whatsoever and bother enough to make it work.
gollark: Now, how can I get overly high precision floats or something...
gollark: Perhaps osmarkscalculator™ (software) *is* to occur.
gollark: Computer algebra systems in general?
gollark: It's running on a device which is *so much better than this* and yet it has moderately suboptimal button stuff designed for physical devices, and *pixelated display stuff*.

See also
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