SBIR Phase I: Hardware Acceleration for Verifiable Delay Functions for use in Distributed Ledger Technology

SBIR 第一阶段：用于分布式账本技术的可验证延迟函数的硬件加速

• 批准号: 1940660
• 负责人: Simon Peffers
• 金额: $ 22.47万
• 依托单位: Supranational LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2020-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940660&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Hardware; Acceleration; Verifiable

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to design and develop a custom processor for performing cryptographic operations. This research will develop algorithms and implement them in hardware to improve their speed. The result of this research will be a design for a cryptographic accelerator that can be manufactured and used by the blockchain industry. These improvements will accelerate the practicality of blockchain for daily financial use, promoting low-cost open financial networks. These networks can reduce the cost of financial services and enable improved financial inclusion.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to increase the throughput, and reduce the cost, of blockchain consensus protocols. Through the use of a purpose-built cryptographic accelerator it will be possible to make many novel cryptographic techniques practical. These techniques include Verifiable Delay Functions (VDF), RSA Accumulators, and Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (SNARKs). In particular, this processor will focus on improving the efficiency of generating VDF proofs. VDFs and related cryptographic techniques hold great promise for improving the scalability and security of blockchain protocols, but are currently too slow on standard processors to provide the desired improvements. These techniques will enable the blockchain to be scaled to tens or even hundreds of times its current transaction throughput. Furthermore, these techniques will simultaneously reduce the computational and energy requirements of most modern blockchains dramatically.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛影响是设计和开发用于执行加密操作的定制处理器。这项研究将开发算法并在硬件中实施以提高其速度。这项研究的结果将是一个可以由区块链行业制造和使用的加密加速器的设计。 这些改进将加速区块链每日财务用途的实用性，从而促进低成本的开放金融网络。这些网络可以降低金融服务的成本并启用改善的金融包容性。该SBIR I阶段项目建议增加区块链共识协议的吞吐量和降低成本。通过使用专用的加密加速器，可以实用许多新颖的加密技术。这些技术包括可验证的延迟功能（VDF），RSA蓄能器和简洁的知识非交互论点（SNARKS）。特别是，该处理器将着重于提高生成VDF证明的效率。 VDF和相关的加密技术在改善区块链协议的可扩展性和安全性方面具有巨大的希望，但目前在标准处理器上太慢，无法提供所需的改进。这些技术将使区块链能够缩放到其当前的交易吞吐量数十亿倍甚至数百倍。此外，这些技术将同时降低大多数现代区块链的计算和能源需求。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准，认为值得通过评估来获得支持。