Abstract  Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) continue to grow in size and currently contain several millions of gates. At the same time, research effort is going into higher-level hardware synthesis methodologies for reconfigurable computing that can exploit PLD technology. In this paper, we explore the effectiveness and extend one such formal methodology in the design of massively parallel algorithms. We take a step-wise refinement approach to the development of correct reconfigurable hardware circuits from formal specifications. A functional programming notation is used for specifying algorithms and for reasoning about them. The specifications are realised through the use of a combination of function decomposition strategies, data refinement techniques, and off-the-shelf refinements based upon higher-order functions. The off-the-shelf refinements are inspired by the operators of Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) and map easily to programs in Handel-C (a hardware description language). The Handel-C descriptions are directly compiled into reconfigurable hardware. The practical realisation of this methodology is evidenced by a case studying the third generation mobile communication security algorithms. The investigated algorithm is the KASUMI block cipher. In this paper, we obtain several hardware implementations with different performance characteristics by applying different refinements to the algorithm. The developed designs are compiled and tested under Celoxica’s RC-1000 reconfigurable computer with its 2 million gates Virtex-E FPGA. Performance analysis and evaluation of these implementations are included.