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CLEFIA is ISO/IEC 29192-2 standard in lightweight cryptography. According to this, the total GE area (I took the minimum) using .13 um is 2,488 (encryption mode) compared to piccolo-128 with GE area of 1,776 (encryption mode) and others lightweight block ciphers . (reference).

On the software side, CLEFIA consumes large memory (2 8-bits boxes and 2 MDS matrix), it cannot be implemented using 512 bytes (ROM) or 64 bytes (RAM). It is implemented minimally with a ROM size of 800 bytes compared to Present (164 bytes) LED(298 bytes), Prince (424 bytes), Piccolo (275 bytes) , TWINE(232 bytes) and others such as SIMON and SPECK .(reference)

In term of performance, figure 1 shows the speed of ciphers with 1024-byte ROM and 128-byte RAM, I see that piccolo lower number of cycles/block compared to CLEFIA in addition , this reference shows that Piccolo-128 with Encryption has GE area of 1776 produces throughput of 193.9 Kbps (@100kHz) compared to CLEFIA-128 has GE area of 2488 produces throughput of 39 9 Kbps (@100kHz). Piccolo looks has better advantages. (reference)

Figure 1 the speed of ciphers with 1024-byte ROM and 128-byte RAM In term of security , CLEFIA uses 128, 192 ,256 bit keys compared to the rest lightweight block ciphers which they use 64 and 128 bit keys.

Another point is during my literature, I do not see CLEFIA is included in comparisons with other lightweight ciphers (Triathlon of Lightweight Block Ciphers for the Internet of Things). This triggered my question: How did CLEFIA got standardized as lightweight block-cipher?

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  • $\begingroup$ You've given excellent reasons why CLEFIA may not be a good candidate for a lightweight block cipher. But unless there are any formal rules for classifying ciphers I think the final classification of CLEFIA is based upon opinion rather than reasoning. $\endgroup$ – Maarten Bodewes♦ Jul 9 '18 at 14:21
  • $\begingroup$ @MaartenBodewes That might as well be an answer, given that there basically is no objective incontestable way to say it is/is not lightweight $\endgroup$ – Ella Rose Jul 10 '18 at 2:17
  • $\begingroup$ Related: What is the official, generally accepted definition of “lightweight crypto”? $\endgroup$ – e-sushi Jul 13 '18 at 22:52