The non-profit organization lowRISC, which oversees the development of a free microprocessor based on the RISC-V architecture, announced on the availability of the first chip, ready for commercial production, built on an open platform OpenTitan, developed as an independent joint project. The project was originally founded by Google, but after the transfer of lowRISC to the organization, companies such as Western Digital, Seagate, Nuvoton Technology, Winbond, Rivos, zeroRISC and G+D Mobile Security joined its development. Project-related code and hardware specifications published licensed under Apache 2.0.
Unlike existing Root of Trust implementations, OpenTitan is being developed according to the concept of “security through transparency”, which implies the availability of code and circuitry, as well as a completely open development process, not tied to specific vendors and chip manufacturers. The solutions used in OpenTitan are based on technologies already used in cryptographic USB tokens Google Titan And TPM chips to provide verified downloads installed on servers in Google's infrastructure, as well as on Chromebooks and Pixel devices.
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OpenTitan is a Root of Trust (ROT) platform that can be used where the integrity of a system's hardware and software elements needs to be ensured, ensuring that critical parts of the system have not been tampered with and are based on verified and authorized manufacturer code. The project provides a ready-made, proven and reliable framework that allows you to increase confidence in the solutions being created and reduce costs when developing specialized security chips.
Chips based on OpenTitan can be used in server motherboards, network cards, consumer devices, routers, Internet of Things devices to verify firmware and bootable components, as well as to generate cryptographically unique system identifiers (protection against hardware substitution), protect cryptographic keys (key isolation in the event that an attacker gains physical access to the equipment), providing security-related services and maintaining an isolated audit log that cannot be edited or erased.
OpenTitan includes various logic blocks required in RoT chips, such as open microprocessor based on RISC-V architecture (RV32IMCB Ibex), cryptographic coprocessors, hardware random number generator, key manager with DICE support, mechanism for secure data storage in permanent and RAM, security technologies, input/output units, secure boot tools, etc. . The device also provides blocks that implement common 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.
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