Is it possible reuse HW AES peripheral in crypto backend?

[Valerii_Ie]

I have found that NRF SDK proposes mbedtls and cifra backends for AES based security. 
The question is whether is possible to reuse nRF52 HW AES for CCM, GCM, ECB modes supported in crypto backends? 
Would it be time/flash size/power efficient?

[Kazi Afroza Sultana]

Hello,

Reusing of nRF52 HW AES in the nRF52832 are not very common. The CCM peripheral is specifically made for Bluetooth and is not really useful for much else.  The ECB can be used for that, and there is an old DevZone blog post about it: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/posts/intro-to-application-level-security-using-the-ecb-

However for more flexible solution, you can use SW implementation. We have AES sample for both nRF5 SDK and nRF Connect for SDK.

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Kazi Afroza Sultana

[Valerii_Ie]

Thanks!  I know that SW implementation gives flexibility and actually using it. The HW AES is free in terms of flash so I was thinking to have it's functionality integrated to the backend that provides AES based security. It should cut considerable amount of flash and execution time.