When hardware matters

Blue Signals is a Politecnico di Milano spin-off and innovative start-up. We deliver cutting-edge hardware solutions for efficient HPC and secure IoT.

Inspect Studio

Side-channel attacks represent a critical security threat for any computing platform in the IoT. Inspect Studio delivers a comprehensive solution to analyze and surgically pinpoint the side-channel vulnerabilities during the entire hardware-software design flow. Inspect Studio targets both programmable computing platforms and hardware accelerators.

Secure hardware primitives

Cryptography represents the de facto standard solution to ensure the security of any sensitive data exchanged and transmitted in the IoT. However, the side-channel and fault attacks pose a severe and real threat to the security of any computing platform. In this scenario, we deliver an extensive portfolio of secure hardware primitives.

HPC platforms

The pursuit of performance is challenging the design of both edge devices and high-end computing platforms. Our team boasts a robust foundation in designing system architectures and accelerators to enhance performance, offering the capability to prototype and deliver complete hardware-software solutions by leveraging FPGA platforms.

About Us

We are entrepreneurs. We are researchers. We are game-changers. We are a team. We are partners.

Blue Signals Srl, a spin-off from Politecnico di Milano, was established in 2021 in Milan, Italy, following over 6 years of research on hardware design for secure platforms in embedded systems and high-performance computing. This research was led by Prof. William Fornaciari and Prof. Davide Zoni. In late 2019, we emerged as the winner of the Swith2Product innovation challenge (s2p.it), organized by Politecnico di Milano, Università Bocconi, Centro nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), and Deloitte Officine Innovazione. Additionally, we secured a corporate grant from Enovia Spa. In 2020, Poli360 VC invested in our venture, providing the necessary support to kickstart our business.

Blue Signals aspires to be a game-changer and a technology leader in designing digital systems and accelerators for the computing continuum. We specialize in crafting building blocks to create secure and efficient computing platforms without compromising on quality. At Blue Signals, we firmly believe in the boundless potential of talented and motivated young individuals. Our aim is to build a robust team with diverse skills capable of navigating the complexities of the ever-evolving digital world.

While keeping a watchful eye on EU research programs and industry needs, our next frontier is to establish ourselves as global leaders in the vertical design and analysis of secure computing platforms. This encompasses everything from designing IoT edge nodes to creating hardware that supports number-crunching applications. We tackle challenges from the outset, prioritizing not only performance optimization but also addressing emerging threats and novel secure technologies, including quantum security, side-channel attacks, and fault attacks.

We are entrepreneurs - We are business-minded, and we enjoy creating solutions to increase safety, security, and trust in the upcoming digital society. We are obsessed with customers' satisfaction, and we always want to find the best solution to any request.

We are researchers - We are thrilled to constantly work at the edge, innovate, and invent novel solutions to make the digital world safer and more secure for everyone. Our attitude is toward constant experimentation and innovation coupled with a rigorous validation methodology to assess any innovative hypothesis.

We are game-changers - We have two souls: the academic one and the industrial one. The academic side demands constant innovation and creativity, while the industrial side imposes that each new product can make a difference in society. By constantly balancing our two souls, we deliver outstanding and disruptive solutions.

We are a team - We are a team founded on a set of values shared by any company member. We constantly support the creativity and curiosity of any member of the team to identify new disruptive technologies. Such core values bring us together well beyond the working hour.

We are partners - We strongly believe that the innovation and the success of any company are constantly fueled by the potential of talented and smart young people. To this end, we are keen to deliver turbo-charged careers for outstanding people willing to make a difference.


  • Vision - Trusted leaders to simplify the design of a more secure digital world
  • Mission - Disruptive angle to deliver cutting-edge hardware
  • Strategy - Top quality solutions blending academic and industrial mindsets

Research and Development

Efficient SmartNIC IPs for HPC systems

Considering the ever-increasing performance and efficiency requirements of modern HPC solutions, the SmartNICs have emerged as a critical component, specifically designed to enhance network performance, reduce latency, and improve overall system efficiency. However, the software and hardware programmability of modern SmartNICs is paving the way to the offload of several computing tasks including AI inference. By carefully following the evolution of hardware reconfigurable commercial SmartNICs, we investigate the efficient design of the computing platform programmed in the reconfigurable fabric to deliver a flexible and scalable computing solution for HPC systems. Our complete solutions include the design and optimization of the reconfigurable hardware computing platform, the hardware-software interfaces, the integration of the solution with the Operating System executed by the host and the high-speed networking infrastructure of the SmartNIC.

Security across the entire hardware design flow

The ever-increasing security and time-to-market requirements make the design of efficient computing platforms at the edge a critical and complex task. Side-channel and fault attacks offer a new way to breach into the physical instances of any computing platform, including those implementing mathematically secure cryptographic primitives. The hardware and software designers must employ a novel design style to secure the computing platforms from such new threats. However, the training to master such design techniques is known to be extremely expensive and time-consuming. To this end, our technology highlights the security holes during the design and prototyping of any computing platform, i.e., from IoT gadgets up to complex high-end embedded systems at the edge, leveraging the information at the hardware level to surgically pinpoint any vulnerability to side-channel and fault attacks. Our technology can then automatically fix the vulnerabilities by modifying the hardware design while preserving the original performance and functionality.

Cutting-edge security for IoT and post-quantum

Cryptography enables securing the transmission and elaboration of sensitive, personal, and critical data. However, the steady refinement and evolution of the cyber-attacks combined with the ever-increasing efficiency requirements of the computing platforms make the design of cryptographic primitives a critical and complex task. On the other hand, the recent advancements in quantum computing threaten to make traditional public-key cryptography obsolete in the near future. By carefully following the standardization processes of the most prominent authorities in the field, e.g., US NIST, we investigate the design of a complete set of lightweight and post-quantum cryptographic primitives, physical unclonable functions (PUFs), true random number generators (TRNGs), and quantum random number generators (QRNGs). Our solutions include designing and optimizing the hardware/software interfaces to integrate the secure modules with the target computing platform efficiently.

Leading team

            

Davide Zoni

Co-founder and CEO

William Fornaciari

Co-founder and CFO

Contact

Location(s):

via Modonesi 2, 29122, Piacenza, Milan Area, Italy

Call:

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