Google unveils OpenTitan project to help build open source, secure chip designs

Cambridge, England-based lowRISC will manage Google's OpenTitan project

Google has launched a new collaborative project, dubbed OpenTitan, which aims to develop an open source, 'trustworthy' chip for use in data centres and computer peripherals.

Announcing the project this week, the internet giant said that OpenTitan will "deliver a high-quality RoT design and integration guidelines," allowing anyone to review the hardware for backdoors and security vulnerabilities.

Hardware Root of Trust (RoT) technique is used to verify that someone has not infected a device's firmware and software with a low-level malware. The technique also allows users to verify the authenticity of software updates.

The silicon RoT technology can be used in network cards, server motherboards, IoT devices, consumer routers, client devices, and more.

The goal of OpenTitan project will be to deliver a transparent design for RoT silicon, which is open for inspection.

The project is loosely based on Google's custom RoT chip, called Titan, which the company has been using in its data centre servers.

The OpenTitan system-on-chip (SoC) will be based on RISC-V open-source CPU instruction set architecture, and will also include cryptographic coprocessors, lowRISC Ibex microprocessor design, IO peripherals, a hardware random-number generator, and several other defensive mechanisms.

The project will also include a certification process for implementers.

Google is collaborating with several technology firms, including ETH Zurich, Nuvoton Technology, G+D Mobile Security, and Western Digital, on this project.

OpenTitan will be managed by lowRISC CIC, a non-profit organisation that uses collaborative engineering to develop and maintain open source silicon designs and tools, including RISC-V tools, SoC and processor design, etc. A team of engineers from Cambridge, England will also assist LowRISC in managing the project.

Google believes this project could help chip makers, platform providers, and big enterprises in improving their infrastructure with silicon-based security.

OpenTitan is not the first project launched to create secure chip designs.

The Open Compute Project, launched in 2011 and supported by Intel, Facebook, Google, also aims to build open-source designs for core infrastructure servers in efforts to gain better efficiencies from data centre operations.

Apple has also developed its own custom silicon, the Apple T2 which allows controlling the security functions of a device and to store encryption keys and user passwords.