Open source design launched for secure CHERI microcontrollers
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lowRISC and SCI Semiconductor have released the open source Sunburst chip repository for developing secure CHERI microcontrollers.
The open source release aims to accelerate the development of commercial microcontrollers using the CHERIoT embedded architecture.
The design repository on Github is a key milestone in phase two of the UK-funded Sunburst Project. This uses the CHERIoT-Ibex architecture developed with Microsoft and used in the ICENI device family from SCI which will reach first commercial availability later this year on a 22nm process.
The CHERI architecture is hardware that protects against the memory safety vulnerabilities that account for around 70% of reported exploits.
“By addressing security challenges in a ‘by design’ manner, CHERIoT-Ibex has proven its potential as a next-generation secure microcontroller architecture. However, to move the needle, CHERIoT-based IP must be both commercial-grade and readily available,” said Dr. Gavin Ferris, CEO of lowRISC in Cambridge, UK. “Our release, with SCI, of the permissively licensed open source Sunburst Chip repository is a significant turning point in bringing CHERI-based security to the embedded systems market, and represents a core deliverable of the Sunburst project.”
The first phase of the Sunburst Project which introduced CHERI technology to embedded engineers through the Sonata FPGA board and RTL platform. The project was subsequently extended to deliver an open source SoC top-level, reusing much of the IP developed for OpenTitan “Earl Grey” chip which is in production with Google and is heading into Chromebooks this year. lowRISC and SCI are also working to tape out a custom version of the Sonata design.
“The availability of commercial-grade CHERI technology is a key factor in shaping the future of secure computing,” said Haydn Povey, Chief Executive, SCI Semiconductor. “We are on a mission to ensure that the market has access to robust, open source foundations for secure-by-design microcontrollers enabling a focus on differentiation, just as we have with Iceni.”
The Sunburst Chip repository is now publicly available on GitHub at github.com/lowRISC/sunburst-chip. Developers and researchers are encouraged to explore the repository and leverage the technology for their own CHERIoT-Ibex based designs. For those looking to experiment with CHERIoT-Ibex today, the Sonata low-cost boards are available at Mouser.
www.sunburst-project.org/; www.lowrisc.org; www.scisemi.com
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