KIMMY

About

Putting cryptography into silicon, and writing about it afterwards.

I’m Kimmy, a Computer Science student at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan.

My interest sits at the seam between software and hardware: an algorithm that works on paper says nothing about how fast it runs in silicon. My capstone project is exactly that problem — we pulled apart SLH-DSA, a post-quantum signature scheme, found the Keccak / SHAKE256 hot path, and grew a set of custom instructions on a RISC-V core to swallow it.

On the team I owned FPGA integration, bitstream programming and hardware testing. That’s the seat where “it passed simulation but exploded on the board” happens most often, so most of my time went into reading waveforms, chasing timing, and convincing myself the testbench wasn’t lying to me.

What I care about

  • Measurable. A speedup needs a number, and a number needs stated measurement conditions.
  • Reproducible. After a project ships, someone else should be able to follow the README and get a working bitstream.
  • Written down. A bug you don’t write up is a bug you hit again in six months — which is what the Notes section is for.

Outside the hardware

I deliberately took coursework outside the CS department: international financial markets, international security. Preparing graduate school applications, that cross-disciplinary background turned out to be one of the more useful things I had to talk about.

Otherwise: department table tennis team, cycling representative for CSIE, and a stint working ticketing at a baseball stadium (which is why I now watch MLB games partly for the crowd flow). I tutored English for a while — TOEIC 915 — and I’ve been studying Japanese for about a year.

Timeline

  1. Aug 2026

    Inbound Mobility Program

    Universiti Malaya, Faculty of Computer Science & IT

    A one-week exchange: cross-institution coursework and lab visits. My cross-disciplinary coursework was the main differentiator in the application.

  2. Sep 2025 – Jun 2026

    Capstone: RISC-V ISA extension for SLH-DSA post-quantum signatures

    NCKU CSIE, advised by Prof. Pei-Yin Chen

    Extended the OpenHW CV32E40P core with 320-bit SIMD registers and custom instructions to accelerate Keccak / SHAKE256. I owned FPGA integration, bitstream programming and hardware testing.

  3. 2025 – 2026

    Hackathons, back to back

    Mei-Chu Hackathon · Sea x OpenAI Codex Hackathon · DevJam

    Stretching from hardware into web and AI-agent applications — practice at collapsing an idea into something demoable in 48 hours.

  4. During studies

    English tutor

    Freelance

    One-on-one tutoring, mostly grammar and reading comprehension. TOEIC 915.

  5. During studies

    Table tennis team · department cycling representative

    NCKU CSIE

    Played on the department table tennis team and represented CSIE at the university cycling festival. Also worked ticketing at a baseball stadium.

  6. 2022 –

    B.S. in Computer Science and Information Engineering

    National Cheng Kung University

    Coursework across compiler design, computer organization and architecture, digital systems and embedded systems, plus electives in international financial markets and international security.