Microprocessor instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic operations

Abstract

Polynomial arithmetic instructions are provided in an instruction set architecture (ISA). A multiply-add-polynomial (MADDP) instruction and a multiply-polynomial (MULTP) instruction are provided.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to the following applications, each of which is being filed concurrently with this application and is incorporated by reference: (1) U.S. application Ser. No. 09/788,683, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,237,097 titled “Partial Bitwise Permutations”; (2) U.S. application Ser. No. 09/788,670, titled “Binary Polynomial Multiplier”; (3) U.S. application Ser. No. 09/788,682, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,621 titled “Configurable Instruction Sequence Generation”; and (4) U.S. application Ser. No. 09/788,685, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,181,484, titled “Extended-Precision Accumulation of Multiplier Output”.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to microprocessor instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic, and more particularly to microprocessor instructions for performing polynomial multiplications.

BACKGROUND

Reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architectures were developed as industry trends tended towards larger, more complex instruction sets. By simplifying instruction set designs, RISC architectures make it easier to use techniques such as pipelining and caching, thus increasing system performance.

RISC architectures usually have fixed-length instructions (e.g., 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit), with few variations in instruction format. Each instruction in an instruction set architecture (ISA) may have the source registers always in the same location. For example, a 32-bit ISA may always have source registers specified by bits 16-20 and 21-25. This allows the specified registers to be fetched for every instruction without requiring any complex instruction decoding.

SUMMARY

Cryptographic systems (“cryptosystems”) are increasingly used to secure transactions, to encrypt communications, to authenticate users, and to protect information. Many private-key cryptosystems, such as the Digital Encryption Standard (DES), are relatively simple computationally and frequently reducible to hardware solutions performing sequences of XORs, rotations, and permutations on blocks of data. Public-key cryptosystems, on the other hand, may be mathematically more subtle and computationally more difficult than private-key systems.

While different public-key cryptography schemes have different bases in mathematics, they tend to have a common need for integer computation across very large ranges of values, on the order of 1024 bits. This extended precision arithmetic is often modular (i.e., operations are performed modulo a value range), and in some cases binary polynomial instead of twos-complement. For example, RSA public-key cryptosystems use extended-precision modular exponentiation to encrypt and decrypt information and elliptic curve cryptosystems use extended-precision modular polynomial multiplication.

Public-key cryptosystems have been used extensively for user authentication and secure key exchange, while private-key cryptography has been used extensively to encrypt communication channels. As the use of public-key cryptosystems increases, it becomes desirable to increase the performance of extended-precision modular arithmetic calculations.

In one general aspect, an instruction set architecture includes an instruction for performing polynomial arithmetic. The instruction includes one or more opcodes that identify the instruction as an instruction for performing a polynomial arithmetic operation. Additionally, the instruction identifies one or more registers. The instruction may be processed by performing the polynomial arithmetic operation using the identified registers.

Implementations may provide an instruction for performing binary polynomial addition, which may be implemented using a multiplier. The result of a polynomial arithmetic operation may be stored in one or more result registers. Polynomial arithmetic operations may include multiplication, where the contents of identified registers are multiplied together. Operations also may include polynomial multiplication-addition, where the contents of identified registers are multiplied together and then added to one or more result registers. The result registers may include a high-order register and a low-order register. Polynomial arithmetic operations may be performed on polynomials stored in registers. The polynomials may be encoded as a binary representation of coefficients.

The details of one or more implementations are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary five-stage pipeline that may be used in a RISC architecture.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor core including an execution core and a multiply/divide unit.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are instruction encodings for exemplary instructions performing polynomial multiplication and addition.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Many public-key cryptosystems use extended-precision modular arithmetic to encrypt and decrypt data. For example, many elliptic curve (EC) cryptosystems heavily use binary polynomial multiplication and addition to encrypt and decrypt data. Performance of elliptic curve cryptosystems may be enhanced by modifying a programmable CPU multiplier to be responsive to newly defined instructions dedicated to polynomial operations.

When using elliptic curves defined over GF(2¹⁶³) (as recommended by the IEEE 1363-2000 standard), the main operation needed is multiplication over the field GF(2¹⁶³). Each of the 2¹⁶³ elements can be represented as a polynomial of degree at most 163 with coefficients equal to 0 or 1. In this representation, two elements may be added using a simple bitwise XOR and two polynomials, a(X) and b(X), may be multiplied by computing a(X)b(X) mod P(X), where the product a(X)b(X) is a 326-degree polynomial, and P(A) is an irreducible polynomial as specified by the IEEE 1363-2000 standard.

Polynomial multiplication has the same form as modular multiplication, ab mod p, over the integers, except that: (1) regular addition is replaced by an XOR; and (2) regular 32-bit multiplication is replaced by a 32-bit carry-free multiplication. Therefore, polynomial modular multiplication may be performed using shifts and XORs instead of shifts and adds.

Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary microprocessor architecture that may be used to implement polynomial multiplication includes a five-stage pipeline in which an instruction may be issued each clock cycle and executed in a fixed amount of time, such as, for example, five clock cycles. The execution of each instruction is divided into five stages: instruction fetch (IF) stage 1001, register read (RD) stage 1002, arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) stage 1003, memory (MEM) stage 1004, and write back (WB) stage 1005. In the IF stage 1001, a specified instruction is fetched from an instruction cache. A portion of the fetched instruction is used to specify source registers that may be used in executing the instruction. In the read registers (RD) stage 1002, the system fetches the contents of the specified source registers. These fetched values may be used to perform arithmetic or logical operations in the ALU stage 1003. In the MEM stage 1004, an executing instruction may read/write memory in a data cache. Finally, in the WB stage 1005, values obtained by the execution of the instruction may be written back to a register.

Because some operations, such as floating point calculations and integer multiply/divide, cannot always be performed in a single clock cycle, some instructions merely begin execution of an instruction. After sufficient clock cycles have passed, another instruction may be used to retrieve a result. For example, when an integer multiply instruction takes five clock cycles, one instruction may initiate the multiplication calculation, and another instruction may load the results of the multiplication into a register after the multiplication has completed. If a multiplication has not completed by the time a result is requested, the pipeline may stall until the result is available.

Referring to FIG. 2, an exemplary RISC architecture is provided by way of example. The processor core 2000 (also referred to as “microprocessor core”) includes the following: an execution unit 2010, a multiply/divide unit (MDU) 2020, a system control coprocessor (CPO) 2030, a memory management unit 2040, a cache controller 2050, and a bus interface unit (BIU) 2060.

Execution unit 2010 is the primary mechanism for executing instructions within processor core 2000. Execution unit 2010 includes a register file 2011 and an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) 2012. In one implementation, the register file 2011 includes thirty-two 32-bit general-purpose registers that may be used, for example, in scalar integer operations and address calculations. The register file 2011, which includes two read ports and one write port, may be fully bypassed to minimize operation latency in the pipeline. ALU 2012 supports both logical and arithmetic operations, such as addition, subtraction, and shifting.

The MDU 2020 performs multiply and divide operations. In one implementation, the MDU 2020 includes a 32-bit by 16-bit (32×16) Booth-encoded multiplier (not shown), result-accumulation registers (HI register 2021 and LO register 2022), a divide state machine, and all multiplexers and control logic required to perform these functions. In one pipelined implementation, 32×16 multiply operations may be issued every clock cycle to MDU 2020, so that a 32-bit number may be multiplied by a 16-bit number every clock cycle. However, the result will not be available in the HI/LO registers (2021 and 2022) until the multiplication has finished. The result may be accessed with the instructions MFHI and MFLO. These instructions move results from the HI register 2021 and LO register 2022, respectively, to an indicated register. For example, “MFHI $7” moves the contents of the HI register 2021 to general purpose register $7.

Two instructions, multiply-add (MADD/MADDU) and multiply-subtract (MSUB/MSUBU), may be used to perform the multiply-add and multiply-subtract operations. The MADD instruction multiplies two numbers and then adds the product to the current contents of the HI register 2021 and the LO register 2022. The result then is stored in the HI/LO registers (2021 and 2022). Similarly, the MSUB instruction multiplies two operands and then subtracts the product from the HI register 2021 and the LO register 2022, storing the result in the HI/LO registers (2021 and 2022). The instructions MADD and MSUB perform operations on signed values. MADDU and MSUBU perform the analogous operations on unsigned values.

Referring to FIG. 3A, an exemplary instruction encoding of a multiply-polynomial (MULTP) instruction 3010 is provided. The MULTP instruction 3010 has two register fields, rs 3011 and rt 3012, that specify the source registers containing polynomials to be multiplied. After the multiplication is complete, the result is stored in the HI register 2021 and the LO register 2022. The MULTP instruction 3010 also may include one or more opcodes 3013 that identify the operation to be performed. In some implementations a portion of the instruction field, such as, for example, field 3014, may be unused.

In one implementation, the registers identified by rs 3011 and rt 3012 contain binary polynomials (i.e., the polynomial's coefficients are reduced modulo two). Thus, each coefficient is either a “1” or a “0”. The polynomials are encoded in a 32-bit register with each bit representing a polynomial coefficient. For example, the polynomial “x⁴+x+1” would be encoded as “10011” because the coefficients of x³ and X² are “0” and the remaining coefficients are “1”.

The MULTP instruction 3010 permits two polynomials to be multiplied. For example, (x⁴+x+1)(x+1)=x⁵+x⁴+x²+2x+1. Reducing the polynomial modulo two, yields x⁵+x⁴+x²+1. If the polynomials are encoded in the binary representation above, the same multiplication may be expressed as (10011)(11)=110101.

The sizes of the instruction and the operands may be varied arbitrarily; the 32-bit design described is merely by way of example. In a 32-bit implementation, a 32-bit word value stored in rs 3011 may be polynomial-basis multiplied by a 32-bit word value stored in rt 3012, treating both operands as binary polynomial values, to produce a 64-bit result. The low-order 32-bit word may be placed in LO register 2022, and the high-order 32-bit word result may be placed in HI register 2021. In some implementations, no arithmetic exceptions may occur. If the registers specified by rs 3011 and rt 3012 do not contain 32-bit sign-extended values, the result of the operation may be unpredictable.

Referring to FIG. 3B, an exemplary instruction encoding of a multiply-add-polynomial (MADDP) instruction 3020 is provided. The MADDP instruction 3020 has two parameter fields, rs 3021 and rt 3022, that specify the source registers containing polynomials to be multiplied and polynomial-basis added (XORed) to the contents of HI 2021 and LO 2022. After the multiplication and addition are complete, the result is stored in the HI register 2021 and the LO register 2022. The MADDP instruction 3020 also may include one or more opcodes 3023 that identify the operation to be performed. In some implementations, a portion of the instruction field, such as, for example, field 3024, may be unused.

The MADDP instruction 3020 performs multiplication as discussed above. Binary polynomial addition is analogous to a bitwise XOR. For example, the binary polynomial addition (x⁴+x+1)+(x+1) gives x⁴+2x+2. Reducing the coefficients modulo 2 yields x⁴, which may be expressed as “10000”.

Similarly, the sizes of the instruction and the operands may be varied arbitrarily. In one implementation, a 32-bit word value stored in rs 3021 may be polynomial-basis multiplied by a 32-bit word value stored in rt 3022, treating both operands as binary polynomial values, to produce a 64-bit result. This result then may be polynomial-basis added to the contents of the HI register 2021 and the LO register 2022. The 64-bit result includes a low-order 32-bit word and a high-order 32-bit word. The low-order 32-bit word may be placed in LO register 2022, and the high-order 32-bit word result may be placed in HI register 2021. If the registers specified by rs 3021 and rt 3022 do not contain 32-bit sign-extended values, the result of the operation may be unpredictable.

In addition to polynomial arithmetic implementations using hardware (e.g., within a microprocessor or microcontroller), implementations also may be embodied in software disposed, for example, in a computer usable (e.g., readable) medium configured to store the software (i.e., a computer readable program code). The program code causes the enablement of the functions or fabrication, or both, of the systems and techniques disclosed herein. For example, this can be accomplished through the use of general programming languages (e.g., C, C++), hardware description languages (HDL) including Verilog HDL, VHDL, AHDL (Altera HDL) and so on, or other available programming and/or circuit (i.e., schematic) capture tools. The program code can be disposed in any known computer usable medium including semiconductor, magnetic disk, optical disk (e.g., CD-ROM, DVD-ROM) and as a computer data signal embodied in a computer usable (e.g., readable) transmission medium (e.g., carrier wave or any other medium including digital, optical, or analog-based medium). As such, the code can be transmitted over communication networks including the Internet and intranets.

It is understood that the functions accomplished and/or structure provided by the systems and techniques described above can be represented in a core (e.g., a microprocessor core) that is embodied in program code and may be transformed to hardware as part of the production of integrated circuits. Also, the systems and techniques may be embodied as a combination of hardware and software. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claim.

Claims

1. A hardware microprocessor that executes an instruction having one or more opcodes, wherein execution of the instruction causes the microprocessor to perform a polynomial arithmetic operation, comprising: a first register to store a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;a second register to store a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;a high-order result register to store a third set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a high-order portion of a binary representation of a third polynomial and a low-order result register to store a fourth set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a low-order portion of the binary representation of the third polynomial;a shift register; andlogic configured to multiply the contents of the first and second registers using the shift register to obtain an intermediate value, and to add the contents of the high-order result register to a high-order portion of the intermediate value, and the contents of the low-order result register to a low-order portion of the intermediate value to obtain a result.

2. The hardware microprocessor of claim 1 wherein a high-order portion of the result is stored in the high-order result register and a low-order portion of the low-order result register.

3. The hardware microprocessor of claim 1 wherein the instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

4. The hardware microprocessor of claim 1 wherein the multiplication is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

5. The hardware microprocessor of claim 1 wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

6. The hardware microprocessor of claim 1 wherein the multiplication and the addition are performed using modulo two arithmetic.

7. A method for performing polynomial arithmetic using an instruction, the method comprising: storing in a first register a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;storing in a second register a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;receiving the instruction, the instruction including one or more opcodes identifying the instruction as an instruction for performing a polynomial arithmetic operation on polynomials represented by respective sets of binary polynomial coefficientsmultiplying the contents of the first and second registers using a shift register to obtain an intermediate value in response to receiving the instruction;adding the contents of a high-order result register having stored therein coefficients corresponding to a high-order portion of a binary representation of a third polynomial to a high-order portion of the intermediate value to obtain a high-order portion of the result; andadding the contents of a low-order result register having stored therein coefficients corresponding to a low-order portion of the binary representation of the third polynomial to a low-order portion of the intermediate value to obtain a low-order portion of the result.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the instruction is part of an instruction set, and the instruction set comprises a RISC instruction set.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising performing the multiplication using modulo two arithmetic.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising performing the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising; performing the multiplication using modulo two arithmetic; andperforming the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising: writing a high-order portion of the result to the high-order result register; andwriting a low-order portion of the result to the low-order result register.

13. A method for performing polynomial arithmetic in an encryption or decryption process, comprising: storing in a first register a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;storing in a second register a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;multiplying the contents of the first and second registers using a shift register to obtain an intermediate value;adding the intermediate value to the contents of a high-order result register and a low-order result register to obtain a result, the result comprising a set of bits that corresponds to coefficients of a binary representation of a polynomial that results from the multiplying and adding; andreading the result for use in the encryption or decryption process.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising executing an instruction that identifies the first and second registers, the execution of which performs the polynomial arithmetic, wherein the instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising performing the multiplication using modulo two arithmetic.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising performing the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising: performing the multiplication using modulo two arithmetic; andperforming the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising: writing a high-order portion of the result to the high-order result register; andwriting a low-order portion of the result to the low-order result register.

19. A hardware microprocessor that executes one or more instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic, the microprocessor comprising: an execution unit that processes a fetched instruction; anda polynomial arithmetic unit used by the execution unit in processing the fetched instruction if the fetched instruction is one of the one or more instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic on polynomials represented by respective sets of binary polynomial coefficients, wherein each set of binary polynomial coefficients includes one or more bits with each bit in the set representing a different term of one of the polynomials and wherein the polynomial arithmetic unit is configured to perform a binary polynomial multiplication-addition operation by performing a binary polynomial multiplication using a shift register to determine an intermediate result and adding the intermediate result to contents of a high-order result register and a low-order result register to generate a result polynomial represented by a result set of binary polynomial coefficients that includes one or more bits with each bit in the result set representing a different term of the result polynomial,wherein the fetched instruction comprises: an opcode identifying the fetched instruction as an instruction for performing the binary polynomial multiplication-addition operation, andtwo register identifiers associated with two respective registers of a register file that contain two respective polynomials, represented by respective sets of binary polynomial coefficients, multiplied in said binary polynomial multiplication.

20. The hardware microprocessor of claim 19 wherein the polynomial arithmetic unit is a component of a multiply/divide unit.

21. The hardware microprocessor of claim 19, wherein the fetched instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

22. The hardware microprocessor of claim 19, wherein the binary polynomial multiplication is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

23. The hardware microprocessor of claim 19, wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

24. The hardware microprocessor of claim 19, wherein the binary polynomial multiplication and the addition are performed using modulo two arithmetic.

25. A computer-readable medium that comprises at least one of a semiconductor, a magnetic medium, and an optical medium, and having computer-readable program code stored thereon for enabling a computer to multiply a first and second polynomial to create an intermediate value and add the intermediate value to a third polynomial, the computer-readable program code comprising: first computer-readable program code for causing the computer to load each of two sets of binary polynomial coefficients representing the first and second respective polynomials into two respective registers of a register file, wherein each set of binary polynomial coefficients includes one or more bits with each bit in the set representing a different term of one of the first and second polynomials;second computer-readable program code including an instruction having: one or more opcodes identifying the instruction as an instruction for performing a polynomial arithmetic operation on the first and second polynomials; andtwo register identifiers specifying the two respective registerswherein execution of the instruction by the computer causes the computer to multiply the first and second polynomials using a shift register to produce the intermediate value, add the intermediate value to a third polynomial to produce a result polynomial represented by a result bit set having a set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of the result polynomial, and to write high-order portion of the result bit set to the high-order result register, and a low-order portion of the result bit set to the low-order result register.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the multiplication is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the multiplication and the addition are performed using modulo two arithmetic.

30. A hardware microprocessor that executes an instruction having one or more opcodes, wherein execution of the instruction causes the microprocessor to perform a polynomial arithmetic operation-comprising: a first register to store a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;a second register to store a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;a high-order result register to store coefficients corresponding to a high-order portion of a binary representation of a third polynomial and a low-order result register to store coefficients corresponding to a low-order portion of the binary representation of the third polynomial, andlogic configured to perform an arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using a shift register to obtain an intermediate value and to add the contents of the high-order result register and the low-order result register to the intermediate value to obtain a result.

31. The hardware microprocessor of claim 30 wherein a high-order portion of the result is stored in the high-order result register and a low-order portion of the result is stored in the low-order result register.

32. The hardware microprocessor of claim 30 wherein the instruction set is part of a RISC instruction set.

33. The hardware microprocessor of claim 30, wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

34. A method for performing polynomial arithmetic using an instruction, the method comprising: receiving the instruction, the instruction including one or more opcodes identifying the instruction as an instruction for performing a polynomial arithmetic operation;storing in a first register a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;storing in a second register a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;performing an arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using a shift register to obtain an intermediate value;adding the contents of a high-order result register and a low-order result register to the intermediate value to obtain a result; andwriting a high-order portion of the result to the high-order result register and a low-order portion of the result to the low-order result register, wherein the high-order result register contains a set of bits corresponding to a high-order portion of a binary representation of the result and the low-order result register contains a set of bits corresponding to a low-order portion of a binary representation of the result.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein the instruction is part of an instruction set, and the instruction set comprises a RISC instruction set.

36. The method of claim 34, further comprising performing the arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using modulo two arithmetic.

37. The method of claim 34, further comprising performing the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

38. The method of claim 34, further comprising: performing the arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using modulo two arithmetic; andperforming the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

39. A method for performing polynomial arithmetic in an encryption or decryption process, comprising: storing in a first register a first set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a first polynomial;storing in a second register a second set of bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of a second polynomial;performing an arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using a shift register to obtain an intermediate value;adding the intermediate value to the contents of a high-order result register and a low-order result register to obtain a result, the result comprising a set of bits that corresponds to coefficients of a binary representation of a polynomial that results from the multiplying and adding; andreading the result for use in the encryption or decryption process.

40. The method of claim 39, further comprising executing an instruction that identifies the first and second registers, the execution of which performs the polynomial arithmetic, wherein the instruction is part of an instruction set, and the instruction set comprises a RISC instruction set.

41. The method of claim 39, further comprising performing the arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using modulo two arithmetic.

42. The method of claim 39, further comprising performing the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

43. The method of claim 39, further comprising: performing the arithmetic operation on the contents of the first and second registers using modulo two arithmetic; andperforming the addition using modulo two arithmetic.

44. The method of claim 39, further comprising: writing a high-order portion of the result in the high-order result register; andwriting a low-order portion of the result in the low-order result register.

45. A hardware microprocessor that executes one or more instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic, the microprocessor comprising: an execution unit that processes a fetched instruction; anda polynomial arithmetic unit used by the execution unit in processing the fetched instruction if the fetched instruction is one of the one or more instructions for performing polynomial arithmetic on polynomials represented by respective sets of binary polynomial coefficients, wherein each set of binary polynomial coefficients includes one or more bits with each bit in the set representing a different term of one of the polynomials and wherein the polynomial arithmetic unit is configured to perform a polynomial arithmetic operation using a shift register to determine an intermediate value, followed by an addition of the intermediate value to a third polynomial to produce a result polynomial, the result polynomial comprising a high-order portion having bits corresponding to coefficients of a high-order portion of a binary representation of the result polynomial and a low-order portion having bits corresponding to coefficients of a low-order portion of the binary representation of the result polynomial,wherein the fetched instruction comprises: an opcode identifying the fetched instruction as an instruction for performing the polynomial arithmetic operation; andtwo register identifiers associated with two respective registers of a register file used in said polynomial arithmetic operation.

46. The hardware microprocessor of claim 45 wherein the polynomial arithmetic unit is a component of a multiply/divide unit.

47. The hardware microprocessor of claim 45, wherein the fetched instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

48. The hardware microprocessor of claim 45, wherein the polynomial arithmetic operation is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

49. The hardware microprocessor of claim 45, wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

50. The hardware microprocessor of claim 45, wherein the polynomial arithmetic operation and the addition are performed using modulo two arithmetic.

51. A computer-readable medium that comprises at least one of a semiconductor, a magnetic medium, and an optical medium, and having computer-readable program code stored thereon for enabling a computer to perform a polynomial arithmetic operation on a first and second polynomial to create an intermediate value and add the intermediate value to a third polynomial, the computer-readable program code comprising: first computer-readable program code for causing the computer to load each of two sets of binary polynomial coefficients representing the first and second respective polynomials into two respective registers of a register file, wherein each set of binary polynomial coefficients includes one or more bits with each bit in the set representing a different term of one of the first and second polynomials;second computer-readable program code including an instruction having: one or more opcodes identifying the instruction as an instruction for performing the polynomial arithmetic operation on the first and second polynomials; andtwo register identifiers specifying the two respective registers that contain the sets of binary polynomial coefficients representing the first and second respective polynomials,wherein execution of the instruction by the computer causes the computer to perform the polynomial arithmetic operation on the first and second polynomials using a shift register to produce the intermediate value, to add the intermediate value to a third polynomial to create a result polynomial represented by a result bit set having bits corresponding to coefficients of a binary representation of the result polynomial, and to write bits of the result bit set corresponding to high-order coefficients of the result polynomial to a high-order result register and bits corresponding to low-order coefficients of the result polynomial to a low-order result register.

52. The computer-readable medium of claim 51, wherein the instruction is part of a RISC instruction set.

53. The computer-readable medium of claim 51, wherein the polynomial arithmetic operation on the first and second polynomials is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

54. The computer-readable medium of claim 51, wherein the addition is performed using modulo two arithmetic.

55. The computer-readable medium of claim 51, wherein the polynomial arithmetic operation on the first and second polynomials and the addition are performed using modulo two arithmetic.