Innovations in the latest IP deliver highly secure and low-resource solutions to device authentication at the edge
London - April 20, 2026 -
Crypto Quantique, a provider of quantum-driven security for the Internet of Things (IoT), has significantly boosted the performance of its semiconductor hardware IP, QDID, a NIST-compliant physical unclonable function (PUF). QDID harnesses quantum tunnelling current variations on standard silicon processes as its source of entropy to generate multiple immutable, truly random seeds. The seeds provide a unique, highly secure identity for device authentication and cryptographic key generation.
With a new patented reconfigurable entropy source and parallelized architecture, the PUF’s seed generation latency has been drastically reduced compared to the first-generation implementation of the quantum-derived PUF architecture. This new approach does not only deliver highly accelerated performance, but also significantly optimizes memory requirements for error correction algorithm helper data – requiring less than 64 bytes for reliable generation of each 128-bit seed.
This generational leap facilitates faster authentication of IoT devices, faster enrollment and reduced power consumption and non-volatile memory (NVM) allocation requirements, while providing enhanced security —all features particularly critical for resource-constrained, battery-powered semiconductor devices. QDID PUF is NIST SP 800-22 and CC EAL4 compliant, and PSA Level 2 Ready.
The seeds generated by QDID are used to create multiple, internally generated, unclonable identities, eliminating the need for costly hardware security modules (HSMs), or requirements to store in memory elements vulnerable to side-channel attacks or the burden of secret key injection processes during manufacturing.
Crypto Quantique’s semiconductor hardware IP block now includes a quantum-entropy source derived True Random Number Generator (TRNG). The TRNG generates cryptographically secure random numbers providing the dynamic entropy required for key generation, nonce and initialization vectors used within cryptographic primitives, and used as challenges in mutual authentication. The shared entropy source and analog front-end allows to maximize hardware efficiency in a combined PUF and TRNG implementation.
For applications requiring a smaller footprint, Crypto Quantique now provides a digital PUF solution, requiring less than 30K equivalent gates for a unique 256-bit seed, including the entropy source and the associated error correction.
Besides the cryptographic primitive implementations with various built-in side-channel protection schemes, Crypto Quantique have implemented and silicon-verified a suite of fault-injection detectors, for malicious attacks through power supply and clock glitches. The combination of the unique PUF-based identity, TRNG and suite of crypto accelerators offer
the building blocks for lightweight root-of-trust solutions in any IoT device.
QDID PUF is compatible with standard CMOS manufacturing processes and is available as IP at nodes from 55 nm down to 12 nm FinFET technology, with advanced nodes in active development. The technology has been validated with TSMC, UMC and Global Foundries CMOS processes.
Crypto Quantique’s CEO, Shahram Mossayebi, commented, “We are continuously improving the performance of our hardware IP for next generation SoCs and devices, but this latest step marks a breakthrough in supporting time-critical applications, such in healthcare and autonomous machines. Here, speed and security are paramount.”