The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security (AISEC) has joined the OpenHW Foundation. The goal of this collaboration is to advance open, trustworthy, and highly secure hardware platforms, thereby strengthening a key component of digital sovereignty in Europe.

Garching near Munich, 01.06.2026 – Digital sovereignty requires independence from proprietary hardware and software stacks. Open architectures and open-source implementations enable transparency, traceability, and long-term controllability – key prerequisites for ensuring that critical infrastructure, industry, and government are resilient and secure.

Secure System-on-Chip based on CVA6 and OpenTitan

In collaboration with partners, Fraunhofer AISEC is developing a secure system-on-chip (SoC) based on the RISC-V-based CVA6 core and the open-source root-of-trust platform OpenTitan. This combination creates a highly customizable, open, and verifiable foundation for security-critical applications, such as in industrial automation, critical infrastructure, or the automotive sector.

Fraunhofer AISEC brings its many years of expertise in hardware and software security to bear in this area – ranging from secure architecture and implementation to side-channel and fault-injection resistance, as well as secure update and lifecycle concepts.

GyroidOS: Linux-based secure operating system on a CVA6 FPGA

A key technology platform is GyroidOS, a Linux-based operating system developed at Fraunhofer AISEC. It already runs on an FPGA that uses CVA6 cores and serves as a reference platform for secure system architectures based on open hardware.

Further development is currently proceeding in two directions:

• Implementation as an ASIC for productive use in industrial and security applications
• Integration of additional security features, such as hardening memory management, isolating components, and mechanisms for secure updating and monitoring throughout the entire lifecycle

Hardware-Software Co-Design for »Security by Design«

Through consistent hardware-software co-design, security features can be implemented that are often impossible to achieve, or only with great effort, in traditional, purely software-based approaches. This applies, for example, to:

• Memory safety mechanisms and finely granular access controls
• Hardware-supported isolation of applications and sensitive components
• Trusted boot and update paths with verifiable integrity

Open hardware facilitates these approaches, as interfaces, implementation details, and security requirements can be developed and verified collaboratively within the ecosystem.

Active contributions to the OpenHW Foundation

Fraunhofer AISEC supports the open-source model and will actively participate in the work of the OpenHW Foundation. Initial contributions – such as those related to the CVA6 SDK – have already been incorporated into the upstream project.

These contributions benefit both Fraunhofer AISEC’s customers and all users of the CVA6 SDK equally:

By incorporating security improvements and tools directly into the central open-source projects, the effort required for customer-specific adaptations and in-house developments is reduced. At the same time, the quality and reusability of solutions across the entire ecosystem are enhanced.

»Open, verifiable hardware is key to digital sovereignty«, says Sascha Wessel, head of the Secure Operating Systems department at Fraunhofer AISEC. »By joining the OpenHW Foundation, we are combining cutting-edge cybersecurity research with a strong, international community, thereby laying a trustworthy foundation for future IT systems. «

»Our work on a secure SoC based on CVA6, OpenTitan, and GyroidOS shows that security and openness are not mutually exclusive«, adds Wessel. »On the contrary: through hardware-software co-design on open platforms, we can implement security mechanisms that are virtually impossible to achieve with proprietary solutions. «

The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC is considered one of the world-leading institutions for applied research in cybersecurity. Around 230 highly qualified researchers develop customized security concepts and solutions for commercial businesses and the public sector, boosting the overall competitiveness of clients and partners. Fraunhofer AISEC designs solutions for enhanced data security and effective defense against cybercrimes such as corporate espionage and tampering attacks. The institute's portfolio ranges from embedded and hardware security, automotive and mobile security to security solutions for industry and automation. In addition, the cutting-edge test labs at Fraunhofer AISEC allow for evaluating the security of networked and embedded systems, hardware and software products as well as cloud and web-based services.

The OpenHW Foundation brings together hardware and software designers to develop open-source core designs and related IP, tools, and software—for both commercial and academic use. These collaboratively developed designs are adopted and adapted by industry partners to provide cores for a wide range of applications—from small embedded devices such as mobile phones to high-performance computers.