Nuvoton Technology has announced that its secure microcontroller, the NuMicro® M2354 series, has successfully implemented PQC technology based on the MicroPQC framework. Through highly optimized software implementation techniques, combined with the Arm® TrustZone® hardware security architectureand PSAand SESIP Level 3 certified security capabilities, the NuMicro®M2354 delivers a “quantum-ready” platform without sacrificing power efficiency or system performance.
Implementing PQC on a resource-constrained Cortex®-M23 platformpresentsa particular challenge due to the intensive computational and memory requirements of post-quantum algorithms. To address this challenge, the development team performed extensive optimization of the Numerical Theoretical Transform (NTT) algorithm on the NuMicro® M2354 architecture, reducing the cycle count by approximately 30% compared to generic reference implementations. Furthermore, memory optimization techniques were used to reduce the RAM usage of the ML-KEM-768 to less than 12 KB. This allows the NuMicro®M2354 to maintain low-power operation while supporting post-quantum safety with limited SRAM resources.
Regarding algorithm compatibility, the NuMicro®M2354 meets both international standards and regional market requirements. In addition to supporting NIST-recommended algorithms such as ML-KEM and ML-DSA, the platform also incorporates candidate algorithms from the Korean Post-Quantum Cryptography Initiative (K-PQC). These include the memory-efficient AIMer128f digital signature algorithm and the SMAUG-T1 key exchange algorithm, which is characterized by extremely low stack memory usage. This broad algorithm compatibility allows the NuMicro®M2354 to meet both global PQC standards and local cryptographic requirements in Korea.
By integrating post-quantum cryptography technologies into the NuMicro® M2354 platform, Nuvoton demonstrates the feasibility of implementing PQC in resource-constrained MCU architectures. This quantum-ready solution can be applied to servers, drones, robotics, and a wide range of IoT applications, helping to strengthen device authentication, secure firmware updates, and data protection mechanisms. It also enables developers to prepare for the cybersecurity challenges of the post-quantum era while improving long-term resilience against future quantum threats.
