Some SHA-2 news

[Robert J. Hansen]

On 2/20/11 5:00 PM, John Clizbe wrote:
> Personal thought: With the exception of some much older SPARC and Alpha*, aren't
> 64-bit platforms usually at the higher end of the performance charts? Why speed
> up there? If work is needed to speed up cryptographic functions, why not
> concentrate on the cell phone/PDA end of the performance spectrum where it is
> truly needed?

Some mobile devices use 64-bit processors.  E.g., the Cell processor is
64-bit, as are some Atom variants.  As more 64-bit processors get thrown
into mobile devices, fast 64-bit code becomes more important.

At present 64-bit procs are a substantial minority, but this will change
quickly in the next few years.  Apple seems pretty married to 32-bit ARM
architecture for their mobile devices: the rest of the world seems
pretty eager to shift.