Crypto Benchmark on i.MX RT1160 MCU
ARM Cortex-M7 @ 600 MHz

This benchmark conducted on MIMXRT1160-EVK i.MX RT1160 Evaluation Kit will help you in qualifying performance of CycloneCRYPTO (Cryptography library), CycloneSSL (TLS 1.3 & DTLS 1.2 library), CycloneSSH (SSH library with SCP & SFTP protocols), CycloneIPSEC (IPsec/IKEv2 library) and CycloneTCP (TCP/IPv4/IPv6 stack with secure protocols like HTTPS, FTPS, MQTTS, Secure WebSocket, Secure CoAP, Secure Modbus/TCP, SNMPv3...) running on NXP i.MX RT1160 microcontroller.

i.MX RT1160 MCU also includes crypto hardware acceleration. In the following comparison charts, both hardware and software performance are presented in the relevant sections.

Cipher Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmCBC Encrypt (Software)CBC Decrypt (Software)CCM Encrypt (Software)CCM Decrypt (Software)GCM Encrypt (Software)GCM Decrypt (Software)
3DES2.269 MB/s1.671 MB/s----
AES-12812.578 MB/s12.547 MB/s6.357 MB/s6.414 MB/s7.309 MB/s7.283 MB/s
AES-19210.94 MB/s11.049 MB/s5.515 MB/s5.558 MB/s6.72 MB/s6.702 MB/s
AES-2569.699 MB/s9.871 MB/s4.866 MB/s4.897 MB/s6.218 MB/s6.203 MB/s
AlgorithmCBC Encrypt (Hardware)CBC Decrypt (Hardware)CCM Encrypt (Hardware)CCM Decrypt (Hardware)GCM Encrypt (Hardware)GCM Decrypt (Hardware)
3DES51.02 MB/s48.543 MB/s----
AES-12855.248 MB/s54.347 MB/s--54.644 MB/s54.644 MB/s
AES-19248.309 MB/s47.169 MB/s--47.619 MB/s48.076 MB/s
AES-25642.735 MB/s41.841 MB/s--42.016 MB/s42.372 MB/s

Hash Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmSpeed (Software)Speed (Hardware)
MD563.694 MB/s-
SHA-117.761 MB/s91.743 MB/s
SHA-22416.42 MB/s119.047 MB/s
SHA-25616.42 MB/s117.647 MB/s
SHA-3846.729 MB/s97.087 MB/s
SHA-5126.734 MB/s95.238 MB/s
SHA3-2243.692 MB/s-
SHA3-2563.487 MB/s-
SHA3-3842.671 MB/s-
SHA3-5121.852 MB/s-

Signature Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
RSA (1024 bits)16.7 ms2.9 ms
RSA (2048 bits)87.3 ms9.7 ms
RSA (3072 bits)250.7 ms20.5 ms
RSA (4096 bits)545.5 ms36.2 ms
DSA (1024 bits)9.6 ms20.2 ms
DSA (2048 bits)43.8 ms91 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
RSA (1024 bits)2.7 ms0.4 ms
RSA (2048 bits)11.1 ms0.5 ms
RSA (3072 bits)30 ms1.1 ms
RSA (4096 bits)63 ms1.9 ms
DSA (1024 bits)2.5 ms3.1 ms
DSA (2048 bits)8.4 ms11.7 ms

EC Signature Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
ECDSA (P-256)81.3 ms104 ms
ECDSA (P-384)144.4 ms161.1 ms
ECDSA (P-521)74.1 ms116.4 ms
EdDSA (Ed25519)9.7 ms18.5 ms
EdDSA (Ed448)40.6 ms78.6 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
ECDSA (P-256)3.3 ms55 ms
ECDSA (P-384)6.5 ms141.6 ms
ECDSA (P-521)11.5 ms89.4 ms

Key Exchange Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Software)Shared Secret Computation (Software)
Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits)37.3 ms35.7 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)243.8 ms243.6 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits)4.5 ms4.1 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)23.3 ms23.2 ms

EC Key Exchange Algorithms

i.MXRT1166 @ 600 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.3.2
  • • Compiled using ARMCC with optimization level 3
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Software)Shared Secret Computation (Software)
ECDH (P-256)87.7 ms83.7 ms
ECDH (P-384)140.7 ms138.4 ms
ECDH (P-521)72.7 ms72.9 ms
ECDH (X25519)6.8 ms6.3 ms
ECDH (X448)20.6 ms20.1 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
ECDH (P-256)3.3 ms2.3 ms
ECDH (P-384)4.2 ms4.3 ms
ECDH (P-521)8.3 ms8.7 ms