//php echo do_shortcode('[responsivevoice_button voice="US English Male" buttontext="Listen to Post"]') ?>
There is often skepticism around the concept of open-source silicon, especially when it comes to security, according to Dominic Rizzo, CEO and founder of ZeroRISC.
We had a chance to catch up with Rizzo last week as the company announced its latest funding round of $10 million, led by Fontinalis Partners (whose other portfolio companies tackle embedded automotive security, AI transformer chips and clean power circuits), as well as Analog Devices co-founder Ray Stata and the SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel.
“There’s not enough inherent understanding about open silicon,” Rizzo said. “But open silicon is inevitable, and at a certain maturity level now, especially with publicly disclosed implementations by companies like Nuvoton and Rivos.”
He explained that security is often considered an additional part of the development that adds cost and time to any design.
Partner Content View All
By Hynetek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 06.25.2025 By Chun-hsiang Chang 06.24.2025 By OMRON Automation 06.23.2025
“Everyone treats security as a feature. But what if we just made it a thing that was like, you don’t have to pay much, is easy to adopt, and you don’t have to put additional people on it. You’re not going to burn through your engineering teams doing this, and people will just use it.”
“It was a very much an ecosystem argument: the ‘if you build it, they will come,’ kind of thing. And I think what we’ve seen over time is that it is in fact happening,” Rizzo added. “We did have to build this first chip, which we did in partnership with Nuvoton and lowRISC and other partners including Google. And now of course, Google announced that they’re adopting it in the data center in Chromebook. So that’s like a really nice proof point that shows that the IP works.”
Rizzo founded the OpenTitan project in 2019 as an open-source silicon root of trust, and in February 2024 claimed to be the first ever open–source chip to reach widespread commercial availability. Since founding ZeroRISC in April 2023, he and his team have pushed their vision of secure, open silicon for all, having transitioned from a development project to commercialization in partnership with Nuvoton and the open-source ecosystem to drive its first commercial tape-out.
... continue reading