Pukyong National University and ICTK build a hardware engine for RSA, ECC, ML-KEM and ML-DSA

A research team led by Professor Choi Pil-ju at Pukyong National University in Korea has developed a hardware engine that supports both conventional public-key cryptography and post-quantum cryptography (PQC). The work was done together with the quantum-security fabless company ICTK, viva100.com reports viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗. It is an industry–academia collaboration.

The team has been working on the project since September 2024. It developed an engine that jointly supports the established RSA and ECC algorithms and the internationally standardized post-quantum algorithms ML-KEM and ML-DSA viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.

One engine for several algorithms

According to the report, the design allows several cryptographic algorithms to be processed on a single hardware block. The emphasis was on reducing the load on hardware resources and power consumption viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗. The developed technology is currently used in ICTK's security chips viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.

The team plans follow-up research through August 2028. Its goals are to improve performance and to develop a programmable cryptographic engine that also supports the Korean post-quantum cryptography standard, KpqC viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.

Other results from the university

The same report describes a development by the team of Professor Kim Ju-hyun from the polymer engineering program at Pukyong National University: a new hole-transport layer material that can be used in both perovskite and organic solar cells viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗. The researchers tuned the molecular structure of a phenothiazine-based self-assembled monolayer (SAM), which, as reported, reduces defects and energy losses inside the cell viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.

A perovskite solar cell with the new material reached a power conversion efficiency of 25.5% and retained 93% of its initial efficiency after 500 hours. An organic solar cell reached an efficiency of 20.4% viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.

Doctoral student Ayuni and researcher Son Dong-hwan, among others, took part in the work. The results were published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials viva100.comviva100.comviva100.comOpen source ↗.