Tampere University Joins OpenTitan Coalition to Advance RISC-V SoC Security and Open-Source Silicon Research

CAMBRIDGE, UK – July 10, 2026 – lowRISC C.I.C., the open-silicon ecosystem organization, and Tampere University, one of Finland’s most multidisciplinary universities and a European leader in System-on-Chip (SoC) research, today announced that the university has officially joined the OpenTitan® project as an academic partner. By bringing its deep expertise in hardware security, RISC-V architecture, and cryptographic acceleration to the world’s first open-source silicon Root of Trust (RoT), Tampere University will help bridge the gap between cutting-edge academic research and commercial-grade silicon deployment.

OpenTitan, stewarded by the non-profit lowRISC®, relies on a transparent, community-driven methodology to build highly secure, flexible, and commercially proven silicon designs. Academic partnerships are a cornerstone of the OpenTitan ecosystem, ensuring the project benefits from the latest advancements in implementation security, post-quantum cryptography (PQC), and novel SoC integration techniques.

“We are delighted to welcome Tampere University to the OpenTitan project,” said Javier Orensanz Martinez, CEO of lowRISC. “Tampere’s renowned SoC Hub and their exceptional faculty are doing pioneering work in evaluating and hardening RISC-V architectures against physical attacks. Their hands-on experience in open-source SoC design and implementation security testing will be invaluable as we continue to push the boundaries of what transparent, open-source secure silicon can achieve.”

“I have been impressed by the rigorous approach the OpenTitan project takes to tackle hard, new challenges such as secure PQC implementation.” said Markku-Juhani O. Saarinen, Professor of Practice at Tampere University “We are excited to work with the other partners on research and also on integration of their mature Security IP on SoCs that the Finnish industry needs.”

As an academic partner, researchers at Tampere University will actively collaborate with the OpenTitan community on several critical fronts. Their focus will include optimizing the integration of OpenTitan into broader SoC architectures, advancing the project’s post-quantum cryptography (PQC) hardware capabilities, and evaluating the design’s resilience against sophisticated physical threats such as side-channel analysis (SCA) and fault injection (FI) attacks.

Tampere University joins a rapidly growing and distinguished OpenTitan coalition that spans both industry and academia.

For more information about the OpenTitan project, its commercial availability, and how to get involved, please visit opentitan.org.

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About Tampere University

Tampere University is one of the most multidisciplinary universities in Finland, bringing together research and education in technology, health, and society. The university is home to the SoC Hub, a major initiative aimed at creating a world-class ecosystem for System-on-Chip design. Tampere University conducts globally recognized research in hardware security, embedded systems, and telecommunications, fostering close collaboration between academia and industry. Find more information at www.tuni.fi.

About 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, which aims to make open-source silicon work the same way as open-source software. Find more information at www.lowrisc.org.