A 28nm 48KOPS 3.4µJ/Op Agile Crypto-Processor for Post-Quantum Cryptography on Multi-Mathematical Problems

Abstract

In the post-quantum era, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) processors are required to ensure quantum-secure communication and e-commerce with high throughput, while maintaining adequate flexibility to execute different crypto-primitives, such as key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) and digital signature (DS) at multiple security levels with evolving modifications. The PQC standards, which are based on multiple mathematical problems, will be available around the end of 2021 in NIST's PQC standardization (Fig. 34.1.1). Crypto-agility, coupled with new mathematical calculations, high computing complexity, and large memory consumption brings challenges to the design of PQC processors considering flexibility, throughput, and energy efficiency.