Design of a sensor node crypto processor for IEEE 802.15.4 applications

The security emerges as a very important constraint for many wireless sensor network applications. This paper presents the design of a sensor node processor supported by a variety of security mechanisms including complex data cryptography and hash generation. Additionally, the processor core is enhanced with the hardware acceleration for IEEE 802.15.4 medium access layer operations. The paper describes the chip architecture and its components and gives the chip implementation details. Finally, the power and performance of the chip have been discussed and analyzed.