OpenTitan is the first open source project to create a high-quality, transparent reference design
At the end of last year we shared here on the blog about the OpenTitan project created by Google and which at the time G + D Mobile Security, Nuvoton Technology and Western Digital and now Google has announced that the OpenTitan project has been completed.
With that after passing the stages of development, testing and verification of RTL schemes (Register Transfer Level) and descriptions of hardware blocks in the SystemVerilog language, Google considers that the project is suitable for the logical design of the platform to build a physical chip and it has been declared frozen against further changes.
OpenTitan is positioned as an independent collaborative project and is developed under the auspices of the non-profit organization lowRISC, which oversees the development of a free microprocessor based on the RISC-V architecture. In addition to Google and lowRISC, Western Digital, Seagate, Nuvoton Technology, Winbond, Rivos, zeroRISC and G+D Mobile Security, as well as ETH Zurich, are involved in development.
For those who are unaware of OpenTitan, you should know that is a Root of Trust platform (ROT) that can be used where necessary to ensure the integrity of system hardware and software elements, ensuring that critical parts of the system have not been tampered with and are based on verified system and authoritative code maker.
We are pleased to announce that the coalition OpenTitan® has successfully reached a key milestone: the RTL freeze of its first engineering sample pitch candidate ! A snapshot of our high-quality, open-source silicon hardware implementation has been released for synthesis, design, and manufacturing. We expect engineering sample chips to be available for laboratory testing and evaluation in late 2023.
The project provides a ready-to-use, tested and reliable framework that allows you to increase the credibility of your solutions and reduce costs in the development of specialized security chips.
OpenTitan based chips can be used in server motherboards, network cards, consumer devices, routers, IoT devices to verify firmware and downloadable componentsas well as generating cryptographically unique system identifiers (protection against equipment substitution), protecting cryptographic keys (key isolation if an attacker gains physical access to the equipment), providing security-related services, and maintaining an isolated audit trail that it cannot be edited or deleted.
OpenTitan includes several logic blocks needed in RoT chips, like an open microprocessor based on RISC-V architecture (RV32IMCB Ibex), cryptographic coprocessors, a hardware random number generator, a DICE-enabled key manager, a secure storage engine for random access memory, security technologies, I/O blocks, secure boot tools, etc
The device also provides blocks that implement generic encryption algorithms, such as AES and HMAC-SHA256, and a math accelerator used in public-key digital signature algorithms, such as RSA and elliptic curve algorithms.
The solutions used in OpenTitan are based on technologies already used in Google's cryptographic USB tokens and TPM chips. Titan to ensure verified downloads installed on Google infrastructure servers, as well as Chromebook and Pixel devices.
At the same time, unlike existing Root of Trust implementations, OpenTitan is developed according to the concept of "security through transparency", which implies the availability of code and schematics, as well as a fully-fledged development process. open that is not tied to specific vendors and chip makers.
The work has passed to the stage of logical synthesis, which converts the high-level RTL to a low-level description at the level of logical elements and drivers. It is mentioned to be available for testing and working prototypes of the chips are planned to start production in late 2023.
For those interested in the code associated and hardware specifications are released under the Apache 2.0 license. Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can consult the details in the following link.