OpenTitan project kicks off the Peppermint integrated root-of-trust for area-constrained SoCs

Collaboration between Sesame AI and lowRISC to deliver open source RoT implementation optimized for wearables and IoT devices

CAMBRIDGE, UK – 25th August 2026 – OpenTitan®, the world’s leading open-source project for secure hardware has a new top level – Peppermint –  optimised for integration into area, cost and power-constrained devices such as wearables, IoT endnodes and microcontrollers. Peppermint is designed to handle the secure boot and firmware update processes, as well as cryptographic operations requested by the main SoC, with minimal energy consumption. Peppermint will benefit from recent developments in OpenTitan such as security-hardened and optimised Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) compatible with CNSA 2.0. Design of Peppermint is planned during H2 2026, with software and verification completion in H1 2027.

OpenTitan has already been successfully adopted in commercial applications such as Chromebooks as a discrete RoT device – Earl Grey – and an integrated RoT component for server SoCs – Darjeeling. The release of Peppermint addresses the need of other applications that require the same level of security with minimal chip size, die area (and therefore production cost) and/or power consumption. For these use cases Peppermint delivers a tiny implementation that integrates on the SoC, remains in low-power state most of the time and only wakes up to handle security-related tasks.

“Security and privacy are foundational at Sesame. We’re asking people to wear our intelligent eyewear all day, and that only works if they trust it,” said Ryan Brown, Head of Hardware at Sesame AI. “Building in the open, with lowRISC and the OpenTitan community, means people can validate our approach for themselves.”

“Cybersecurity is a huge concern that affects everyone, cutting across country and organisational boundaries,” said Javier Orensanz Martinez, CEO of lowRISC. “Open silicon is quickly becoming the security foundation for the semiconductor industry. With the release of Peppermint, OpenTitan is demonstrating its versatility to deliver a hardware security solution for multiple types of devices and use cases.”

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About OpenTitan and lowRISC

Founded in 2014 at the University of Cambridge, lowRISC C.I.C. is a not-for-profit company that provides a neutral home for collaborative engineering to develop and maintain open-source silicon designs and tools for the long term. The lowRISC open-source silicon ecosystem includes the OpenTitan project, the world’s most active and widely adopted open-source silicon project, containing commercial-grade IP blocks and security certified hardware Root of Trust designs.

About Sesame AI Inc.

Sesame is building the most human interface for intelligence, brought to life through personal voice agents and optical-first eyewear designed for everyday life. Our Conversational Speech Model (CSM) enables natural, real-time conversation that understands context, nuance, and intent, while our lightweight eyewear makes that intelligence seamlessly accessible throughout the day. Founded in 2022, Sesame is an interdisciplinary team of artists and makers, led by Brendan Iribe, Ankit Kumar, Nate Mitchell, and Ryan Brown, with teams in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York City. Learn more at www.sesame.com.

FAQs

Does Peppermint replace Darjeeling?

No. While Peppermint and Darjeeling are both integrated RoTs, they target different use cases. Darjeeling was developed for servers, which favour performance and versatility, while Peppermint has been developed for small SoCs requiring low area and power consumption. Both Peppermint and Darjeeling continue to be actively developed and supported.

Where can I access Peppermint?

The Peppermint  top level design is part of the OpenTitan repository, hosted in GitHub, and is released under a business friendly Apache 2.0 license. Upstreaming efforts will commence in the next few weeks.

Who should I contact to find out more?

lowRISC are the stewards and maintainers of OpenTitan, and can be contacted on info@lowrisc.org.