{"references": ["RFC 2510 - Internet X.509 PKI - Certificate Management Protocols,\navailable at www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2510.txt", "SP800-77 , Guide to IPSec VPN-s, National Institute of Standards and\nTechnology (NIST).", "Secure Electronic Transactions: An Overview, available at\nwww.davidreilly.com/topics/electronic_commerce/essays/secure_electro\nnic_transactions.html", "Johnston D, Walker J, Overview of IEEE802.16 Security, IEEE Security\nand Privacy, May-June 2004.", "FIPS 186, (DSS), Digital Signature Standard Federal Information\nProcessing Standard, (FIPS), Publication 180-1, NIST, US Dept of\nCommerce.", "Introduction to SSL, available at http://docs.sun.com/source/816-6156-\n10/contents.htm", "FIPS 198, The Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC)\nFederal Information Processing Standard, (FIPS), Publication 180-1,\nNIST, US Dept of Commerce.", "H. Dobbertin, A. Bosselaers, B. Preneel, RIPEMD-160: A Strengthened\nVersion of RIPEMD, 18 April 1996."]}

In this paper an efficient implementation of Ripemd- 160 hash function is presented. Hash functions are a special family of cryptographic algorithms, which is used in technological applications with requirements for security, confidentiality and validity. Applications like PKI, IPSec, DSA, MAC-s incorporate hash functions and are used widely today. The Ripemd-160 is emanated from the necessity for existence of very strong algorithms in cryptanalysis. The proposed hardware implementation can be synthesized easily for a variety of FPGA and ASIC technologies. Simulation results, using commercial tools, verified the efficiency of the implementation in terms of performance and throughput. Special care has been taken so that the proposed implementation doesn-t introduce extra design complexity; while in parallel functionality was kept to the required levels.