Cambridge open source hardware spinout LowRisc has been backed by Alphabet's Google, which has sent two representatives to its board of directors.
LowRisc, a UK-based open source computing hardware designer spun out of University of Cambridge, has attracted an undisclosed amount of capital from Google, the internet subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Alphabet.
Founded in 2014 from Cambridge’s Computer Lab, LowRisc operates as a nonprofit community interest company to encourage collaborative development of open source silicon designs for pieces of computing hardware including system-on-a-chip (SOC) products.
SOCs combine all electronic circuits needed for a given computer component on a single chip, meaning electronic devices can be made smaller, more powerful and energy efficient.
LowRisc supports a core engineering team who partner industry, academia and the wider hardware development community to design and develop its silicon products.
LowRisc’s chip designs are based on a free and open-source computing architecture called Risc-V. The spinout hopes they will encourage greater experimentation with chipsets such as field-programmable arrays – versatile semiconductors that can be reprogrammed following fabrication.
Google will support LowRisc in attaining the spinout’s objectives, and will be represented on the board of directors by Dominic Rizzo, its lead for open secure silicon technology, and Ron Minnich, one of its software engineers.
Luca Benini, a professor at ETH Zurich’s Integrated Systems Laboratory, has also joined the LowRisc board, in light of his team offering up a processor design to the spinout for continued development.
