An embodiment includes at least one processing unit to perform at least first and second sets of diffusion-related operations to produce a resulting block from a data block, and that includes at least one stage and at least one other stage. The at least one stage is to select one of first operands and second operands input to the at least one other stage. The first and second operands are respectively associated with the first and second sets of operations, respectively. The at least one other stage involves arithmetic and logical operations common to both the first and second sets of operations. At least one other processing unit is to perform at least one set of cryptographic-related operations (different, at least in part, from the first and second sets of operations) on at least one of (1) another block to produce the data block and (2) the resulting block.