It has been named after the French word "Clef" meaning "key."

It can be applied in any product or software that requires encryption and authentication. In particular, CLEFIA can be implemented efficiently in restricted environments such as smartcard and RFID applications.

CLEFIA achieves compact and fast implementation simultaneously without compromising security. Compared with the AES, the most-widely-used 128-bit block cipher, CLEFIA is advantageous in hardware implementation. Using a 0.13 micrometer CMOS ASIC library, CLEFIA can be implemented with less than 3 Kgates. Furthermore, using a 0.13 micrometer CMOS ASIC library, CLEFIA realizes a speed of 1.6 Gbps at less than 6 Kgates, with throughput per gate the world's highest as of March 23 2011.