The Barkhausen Institute performs research on the latest hardware, software and communication technologies and demonstrates their application in tomorrow's society. Our goal is to build a flexible and trustworthy IoT platform based on reliable electronics and secure communication methods.

The Research group "Secure Digital Systems” (SDS) focuses primarily on the security of digital systems – from classic computers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to embedded systems, in which artificial intelligence is increasingly being used. The aim is to make both conventional and intelligent systems resistant to real-world attacks.

To help pursue our research agenda, we are looking for a

Student Assistant – LLM generation of HW SHA3 (m/f/d)

(up to 19 hours/week for 6 months)

The project

Recent developments have shown that large language models (LLMs) can discover new hardware optimizations by generating and refining C code, which is then synthesized with High Level Synthesis tools. The Student Assistant will focus on exploring if LLMs can be used to directly generate and refine verilog code, for the SHA3 cryptographic primitive.

Your tasks

• Find the best prompts to make the LLMs generate verilog code
• Check the correctness and security of the generated code against the SHA3 specification
• Evaluate the speed/area tradeoff of the generated code
• Find the best prompts to make the LLMs correct/improve the generated code

We expect the following

• Good communication and writing skills in English
• Good reading skills for cryptographic specifications

• Knowledge of verilog (or vhdl) and C.
• Prior experience with LLM prompt crafting

What we provide

• An open and creative team of enthusiastic scientists
• Agile working hours and workflows
• Work on future technologies

If you have passion for new technologies and the desire to develop the connected world of tomorrow with us, we are looking for you.

Life and science are compatible at our institute. We offer a range of recognised family-friendly measures, such as part-time work, mobile working and flexible working hours that take family needs into account. We also offer support for arriving in Dresden (all formalities, apartment etc.).

Application procedure

Short letter of motivation and curriculum vitae to Kontakt (über Bewerben-Kontaktformular) . We only accept complete documents as one single PDF document by e-mail. Applications that contain other file formats (e.g. Word, Excel) will not be considered in the selection process. Informal inquiries can also be submitted to the same address. Please reference " LLM generation of HW SHA3 ” in the subject line.

Barkhausen Institute strives for gender and diversity equality. We welcome applications from all backgrounds. Severely disabled persons are given preference in the event of equal suitability.

The data submitted by you in the course of the application procedure will be processed by the Barkhausen Institut (BI). BI shall use the data for the purposes of the application procedure. No data shall be passed on to third parties.