1. A Galois field multiplier wherein mq-bit multiplier and multiplicand bytes are each partitioned into a plurality of q m-bit sub-bytes, q and m each being integers greater than zero, and wherein multiplication among selected groups of said multiplier and multiplicand sub-bytes is distributed among a plurality of m-bit multipliers which each compute m-bit intermediate product sub-bytes therefrom, and wherein computation of an mq-bit product is partitioned into computation of q m-bit final product sub-bytes by q respective adders from respective q sets of said m-bit intermediate product sub-bytes.