Research Fellow - Hardware Security (Microelectronics / QKD)

About the role

The National Integrated Centre for Evaluation (NiCE) at NTU, a collaboration between the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and NTU, is looking for a Research Fellow to carry out secure and reliable research on microchips used in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. The researcher will investigate hardware-level security vulnerabilities and explore attack-resistant design solutions.

Key responsibilities

• Conduct hardware security analysis of microchips, focusing on attack approaches such as laser probing.
• Investigate and explore emerging, innovative attack techniques for hardware security evaluation.
• Build testing environments and perform physical security evaluations (e.g., laser probing, e-beam probing) to assess real-world security performance.
• Study protective mechanisms and work with QKD system design, photonic design and electronics teams to integrate security features into the QKD system architecture.

Required profile

• PhD in Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Physics, Microelectronics or a related field.
• Hands-on experience in hardware security evaluation and analysis.
• Ability to work independently in a multidisciplinary environment, with good written and oral communication skills.

Required skills

• Independent operation of lab instruments such as oscilloscopes and lasers for security testing and data analysis.
• Proficiency with Python, MATLAB or C++ for modelling, simulation and automated test scripts.
• Basic knowledge of mainstream QKD hardware is preferred.