These are the proceedings of CHES'99, the rst workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. As it becomes more obvious that strong security will be an important part of the next generation of communication, computer, and electronic consumer devices, we felt that a new type of cryp- graphic conference was needed. Our goal was to create a forum which discusses innovative solutions for cryptography in practice. Consequently, the focus of the CHES Workshop is on all aspects of cryptographic hardware and embedded s- tem design. Of special interest were contributions that describe new methods for e cient hardware implementations and high-speed software for embedded s- tems, e. g., smart cards, microprocessors, or DSPs. We hope that the workshop will help to ll the gap between the cryptography research community and the application areas of cryptography. There were 42 submitted contributions to CHES'99, of which 27 were selected for presentation. All papers were reviewed. In addition, there were three invited speakers. We hope to continue to make the CHES Workshop a forum of intellectual exchange in creating the secure, reliable, and robust security solutions of tom- row. We thank everyone whose involvement made the CHES Workshop such a successful event, and in particular we thank Murat Aydos, Dan Bailey, Br- don Chetwynd, Adam Elbirt, Serdar Erdem, Jorge Guajardo, Linda Looft, Pam O'Bryant, Marie Piergallini, Erkay Sava s, and Adam Woodbury. Corvallis, Oregon C etin K.