What Pavona Is and Why It Matters for IoT Security Design
Pavona is an open-source silicon distribution that provides production-grade, certification-ready security IP and an integrated post-quantum cryptography stack, enabling chip designers to build quantum-resistant roots of trust directly into embedded and IoT systems from the earliest stages of silicon design. Instead of treating hardware security as an afterthought, Pavona moves critical decisions about roots of trust, cryptographic acceleration and certification into the design-in phase, where they can shape the entire lifecycle of connected products. For IoT security design, this is significant: the cryptographic foundation for devices that may stay in the field for a decade or more can now be aligned from day one with FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria requirements. By combining open-source silicon with a complete classical and post-quantum cryptographic stack, Pavona targets the long-term threat posed by quantum computing to existing public-key schemes.
Production-Grade, Certification-Ready IP for Quantum-Resistant Chips
Pavona distinguishes itself from earlier open-source silicon projects by shipping production-quality IP components and silicon-proven reference roots of trust instead of remaining at the level of one-off cores or toy chips. The distribution includes two TSMC 3nm taped-out reference designs: a standalone chip root of trust and an integrated root of trust for chiplet architectures, both built as building blocks for secure-by-default SoCs. According to GlobalPlatform, Pavona’s architecture is aligned with FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria certification requirements, giving IoT silicon and module vendors a starting point that is designed with certification workflows in mind. While it does not remove the need for product-level validation, it sharply lowers the hurdle for teams that lack deep cryptographic or certification expertise. That combination of open-source silicon and certification-ready security IP is central to making quantum-resistant chips practical beyond a handful of large vendors.
Integrated Post-Quantum Cryptography from the Outset
A defining feature of Pavona is its integrated post-quantum cryptography support for embedded silicon. The platform includes a full classical and post-quantum cryptographic stack from day one, making it, as GlobalPlatform describes, the first open-source silicon distribution to deliver production-grade post-quantum cryptography out of the box. Research from ZeroRISC, the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, and Academia Sinica presented at Real World Crypto reports 6–9x performance gains for the ML-KEM and ML-DSA algorithms on embedded silicon, with 36–75% higher maximum frequency at near-zero area cost. That work is already baked into Pavona. For IoT developers, this means post-quantum algorithms are not bolted on in software later, but are co-designed with the hardware, helping to protect long-lived devices against future quantum attacks on today’s public-key infrastructure.
Modular Open-Source Silicon for Diverse IoT Architectures
Instead of a single monolithic chip, Pavona is organized as a modular distribution: a composition engine plus a curated IP library that lets integrators assemble security subsystems tailored to their architecture. This approach fits the diversity of IoT security design, where a standalone secure element, an embedded root of trust in a microcontroller, and a root of trust inside a chiplet-based gateway are very different design problems. With its two 3nm root-of-trust reference designs serving as concrete examples, Pavona offers silicon-proven templates that can be adapted for resource-constrained nodes, automotive controllers, AI accelerators or datacenter hardware. Support from founding members such as Meta, Qualcomm Technologies, Tenstorrent and the University of Oxford signals that the ecosystem sees value in a shared open-source foundation. For IoT manufacturers, the result is a more accessible path to consistent, quantum-resistant security across heterogeneous hardware portfolios.
Democratizing Quantum-Ready IoT Security Through Open Governance
Pavona’s governance is designed to keep its quantum-resistant security IP neutral and broadly usable across the IoT ecosystem. Hosted by GlobalPlatform, the project is overseen by a Governing Board of contributing members that fund operations, while an independent Technical Steering Committee drives the technical roadmap. Its charter follows proven models like Yocto and Zephyr, with community-driven development linked to the standards experience needed for mass-market certification. Dominic Rizzo, Pavona Governing Board Chair and CEO of ZeroRISC, states that “trustworthy chip security should be easy to integrate, accessible to all, and independently governed — never locked inside proprietary, single-vendor implementations.” By keeping the IP openly available at pavona.org and aligned with certification standards, the initiative aims to democratize access to post-quantum cryptography and roots of trust, helping more IoT developers build secure, quantum-ready devices from the silicon up.