March 18, 2025, China-STMicroelectronics announced the availability of hardware cryptographic accelerators and related software libraries for general-purpose and secure microcontrollers, which customers can now use to design quantum attack defense features for next-generation embedded systems.
As research and experiments prove that quantum computers are beginning to outperform traditional computers, industries are preparing for quantum computers to go mainstream. Governments are using quantum computers to develop new cryptographic techniques based on difficult mathematical problems and to develop new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards. To date, the industry's published PQC standards have all used the award-winning Keccak algorithm, a highly defensive hashing algorithm invented by STMicroelectronics' cryptography experts.
Now the industry is in urgent need of cryptographic security solutions that meet these standards so that product developers can implement information security protection measures within their products according to current best practices and continue to enhance cyberattack defense capabilities as technology develops. ST's newly released solution is integrated into the X-CUBE-PQC software library for Stellar automotive microcontrollers with integrated SHA-3 hardware accelerators. In addition to automotive microcontrollers, there are new software libraries and hardware IP blocks developed for secure microcontrollers, targeting Common Criteria and FIPS 140-3 security standards, supporting ML-KEM, ML-DSA and XMSS/LMS PQC algorithms.
Said Jacques Fournier, Director of Security Platforms at STMicroelectronics: "Quantum computers are expected to bring many benefits to activities such as finance, scientific research, and earth observation. On the other hand, it can overwhelm some current types of encryption in everyday devices. ST is the first company to provide anti-quantum attack defense in its entire microcontroller product line, serving all customers and meeting various security level requirements."
ST's released post-quantum cryptographic cryptographic assets are already available, allowing customers to add a quantum attack defense barrier to key security functions of their products, such as firmware updates, secure boot and authentication mechanisms.
Jacques Fournier of STMicroelectronics delivered a speech and demonstrated related exhibits at the Exhibitor Forum of the Embedded World Congress in Nuremberg.