Codasip donates CHERI RISC-V SDK to open source

German processor designer Codasip has donated its newly developed RISC-V Software Development Kit (SDK) for CHERI to the community-interest organization CHERI Alliance

The Alliance is making the SDK freely available for download on GitHub to provide open access to the complete SDK with Linux kernel. This aims to simplify building and testing of CHERI-enabled RISC-V applications.

CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) is an advanced security technology developed by the University of Cambridge in a joint research project with SRI International that begun in 2010. In 2023, the technology was for the first time made commercially available in a licensable processor by Codasip, followed by an automotive RISC-V core last week.

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CHERI extends the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) to enforce fine-grained memory access control. This prevents common vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows and memory corruption. However, to make use of the technology, developers must have access to software tools and packages that are adapted for the ISA.

The compiler, in particular, must be capable of generating applications that leverage the new instructions introduced by the modified ISA and hardware core. In collaboration with other Alliance members, Codasip has built these tools on existing open-source projects and is donating them to the CHERI Alliance for unrestricted use by everyone implementing the technology on RISC-V.

“As more organizations and governments discover the potential of the CHERI technology to protect us, we need to speed up the pace of making the technology available in real systems,” says Ron Black, chief executive officer of Codasip. “We have made a massive effort to implement a full Linux-capable SDK that we are now opening for everyone to use. I am confident this will be a great asset for the CHERI and RISC-V communities.”

“The CHERI Alliance is strongly focused on collaboration and openness to make sure that CHERI security gets integrated into all high-tech products,” comments Michael Halsall, director of the CHERI Alliance. “The fact that Codasip makes their SDK openly available through the Alliance supports the standardization effort of CHERI for RISC-V. CHERI can deliver a more secure future for electronics, and we must come together to make that happen, between academia, industry and government.”