Internship - FPGA Hardware Design - PQ Cryptography Hardware Accelerator

As an FPGA Hardware Design intern at CryptoNext Security, you will take ownership of a strategic project developing hardware accelerators for post-quantum cryptography. You will study state-of-the-art approaches in PQC hardware acceleration from scientific literature, implement selected designs in SystemVerilog RTL, and evaluate their impact on real embedded platforms. Your focus will be on accelerating the Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) and Keccak state permutation function, two key computational functions in ML-KEM and ML-DSA lattice-based algorithms.

What you'll do

• Study and evaluate state-of-the-art approaches to post-quantum cryptography hardware acceleration from academic literature
• Develop system-level RTL code in SystemVerilog for hardware accelerators targeting the NTT or Keccak permutation function
• Integrate the resulting accelerators into a complete hardware/software system on an AMD Xilinx ZCU104 development board with Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC
• Demonstrate that your hardware accelerator effectively accelerates the corresponding ML-KEM or ML-DSA implementation in the CryptoNext Quantum Safe Library (C-QSL)
• Evaluate application-level performance impact and communicate results clearly

What you bring

• FPGA development and RTL design experience using Verilog, SystemVerilog, or VHDL
• Experience with AMD Vivado or Intel Altera Quartus and FPGA development platforms
• Good programming skills in C under Linux, with basic knowledge of assembly language
• Strong interest in hardware/software codesign and embedded systems
• Experience with Git and standard software development workflows
• Familiarity with shell scripting, Makefiles, and compiler toolchains
• Experience using profilers and debuggers to analyze and optimize software performance
• Ability to work independently, investigate technical problems, and communicate results clearly
• Currently a final-year engineering student or pursuing an M2/Master's degree in computer engineering, electrical engineering, embedded systems, microelectronics, or a related field

Nice to have

• Knowledge of AMBA protocols such as AXI, AHB, APB, or CHI
• Experience with JTAG-based debugging
• Experience with QEMU, including the Xilinx fork of QEMU
• Experience with QEMU/SystemC/Verilator co-simulation
• Previous exposure to post-quantum cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, ML-KEM, ML-DSA, NTT, DFT, or Keccak and hash functions
• Familiarity with embedded Linux and Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC architectures

What we offer

• 6-month internship from December 2026 to June 2027

About CryptoNext Security

CryptoNext Security is a deeptech startup specializing in post-quantum cryptography, helping businesses and institutions prepare for a future where quantum computers will challenge traditional data security. The company works with leading clients in finance, defense, and telecommunications.