PQC-Ready Secure Embedded Hardware Moving from Innovation to Over 100 Million Shipments by 2028

On the eve of the U.S. NIST’s Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards announcement, semiconductors are ready to roll out PQC-ready secure embedded hardware solutions to the market, including Secure Elements, Trusted Execution Environment-enabled chipsets, Secure Microcontrollers, Authentication ICs, and Trusted Platform Modules. ABI Research, a global technology intelligence firm, expects the demand for PQC-capable secure embedded hardware to ramp up once the standards are published quickly. Over 100 million shipments of PQC-ready secure embedded hardware are forecasted by 2028.

“Currently, PQC adoption in secure embedded hardware is limited to a few Proofs of Concepts (POCs), with some limited use cases in specific industries (e.g., smartcards, automotive). Now that the first standards are published, work will be required to adapt those standards to a broad range of ends,” says Michela Menting, Senior Research Director at ABI Research. “Nonetheless, the transition to using quantum-safe technologies is a growing policy requirement, and all industries will have to make that migration in due course. This requires silicon IP, semiconductors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to build that into their product offerings.”

For embedded applications, the focus will be on making PQC implementations small and secure, given the limited memory and power constraints. Anti-tampering protection is another key requirement driving semiconductor R&D efforts in this space.

Companies including NXP, Infineon, and STMicroelectronics are poised to announce PQC readiness in their latest generation of products. Still, it will be with the next product lines (currently in development) that more performant hardware with better accelerators to process the new algorithms will hit the market.

PQC readiness in secure embedded hardware is quickly moving from innovation to product integration, and much of that commercialization will be guided by the pace of standards release and the priority of implementation in the different end markets. “Those sectors where products have a long lifespan and may therefore still be in use when attack capable quantum computers emerge (such as automotive and industrial) will see faster uptake as quantum-resistance is being designed in now. Others, such as consumer electronics and smart home devices, may be slower to roll out PQC-ready products, as their product lifespan is shorter (as is product development), giving them more time to decide when to start integrating PQC-ready technologies. Regardless, PQC-readiness in secure embedded hardware will become a key requirement in all industries in due course,” Menting concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s PQC Readiness in Embedded Security report. This report is part of the company’s Trusted Devices Solutions research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights.