On July 10-12, EDI senior researcher Dr Rihards Novickis participates in the FSiC2023 conference hosted by Sorbonne University in Paris, France. The conference is supported by the EDI-coordinated GoIT project and is dedicated to open and transparent silicon technology.
In our PCs and smartphones there is a “processor inside”. But what is inside the processor?
As of today, most microprocessors, and most silicon chips in general, are black boxes whose design and layout are secret. Instead, a free and open-source silicon chip is a chip which is open in its entirety: from the high-level specifications down to the silicon layout. Its design is free as in freedom allowing everyone to study and improving its design. An open-source chip is also fully auditable allowing for increased security because there’s no place to hide hardware Trojans or unwanted features without being noticed.
Even though the free and open-source silicon movement is still in its infancy, it carries the promise of growing like its software counterpart: Free and open-source software like GNU/Linux is indeed ubiquitous today and generally accepted as a requirement for innovation.
More about the conference and valuable talks given (slides+video):
https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/FSiC2023
More about the GoIT project:
https://goit-project.eu/
https://www.edi.lv/en/projects/go-it/