A system and method for implementing the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA) for the Data Encryption Standard (DES) using merger ciphers is provided which may be configured to operate in the chain block cipher (CBC) mode. Data blocks are enciphered using less computations in the critical timing path significantly reducing the time required for each round of ciphering. Two permutation function (Ef) elements (218, 220) operate separately during each ciphering round eliminating an XOR operation from the critical path.