Hitchhiking into Silicon: True Open-Source Hardware Down to the Transistor

Open-source hardware has historically stopped at the circuit board. The primary computer chips we use remain proprietary black boxes, requiring blind trust in massive fabrication factories. This talk introduces an unprecedented partnership between hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang and Crossbar, Inc., which successfully placed open-source logic alongside commercial Resistive RAM (ReRAM) on a single 22nm chip.

We will break down how this architecture achieves absolute transparency: open-source RISC-V RTL blueprints running the pure-Rust Xous OS, an embedded Memory Management Unit (MMU) for isolated application security, and an innovative physical layout designed for visual attestation (infrared inspection) against factory backdoors. Discover how combining commercial manufacturing with open-source silicon paves the way for truly verifiable, trustless hardware security.

Speakers: Mark Davis

Track: [CLS] - OTS