CHIPS Alliance - Our Vision and Priorities for 2026

  • February 5, 2026

  • 4 minutes

  • 752 words

#caliptra #systemverilog #openprot #f4pga
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Dear CHIPS Alliance Community,

As we approach 2026, the CHIPS Alliance is evolving. Over the past few years, we have grown from a collection of ambitious projects into a central hub for open-source silicon innovation. Our vision for 2026 is centered on sustainability, technical rigor, and established trust. We are transitioning from an incubation phase to a mature, community-driven ecosystem focused on high-quality, verifiable IP and robust tooling for design and validation enablement.

Here is what you can expect in the year ahead.

1. Strategic & Operational Shifts

CHIPS will look a bit different in 2026. Rob Mains will be retiring and the board has decided to embrace a Community-Driven Leadership Model to ensure long-term financial health and operational efficiency.

  • Leadership Transition: After years of dedicated service, Rob will be transitioning out of the General Manager role in Q1. We thank Rob for his leadership in building this ecosystem - Rob’s work as GM has been critical to making CHIPS Alliance an anchor of the open silicon community.
  • Empowered Governance: For 2026, the organization will operate without a General Manager, relying instead on a highly engaged Governing Board and Technical Advisory Council (TAC), supported by the Linux Foundation Project Management team.
  • 2026 Leadership: We are pleased to announce Matt Cockrell as the 2026 Governing Board Chair and Aaron Cunningham continuing as TAC Chair.

Sustainable Growth
To support this vision and build necessary financial reserves for future leadership transitions, the Board has approved a 25% adjustment in membership dues for 2026. This adjustment creates a sustainable baseline for our projects while allowing us to focus our budget on technical infrastructure and essential program management.

2. Technical Roadmap: The “Home of Trusted IP, tooling, and specs”

Our 2026 technical strategy is centered on community stewardship and strategic incubation. We are overseeing a diverse portfolio that includes established, industry-adopted projects like Caliptra, alongside emerging workgroups such as SV Tools. Additionally, we are exploring innovative frontiers in AI-driven chip development and the Coral NPU. Our objective is to serve as the industry’s central hub for high-quality, verifiable open-source silicon IP, tooling, and specifications:

Security & Root of Trust

  • Caliptra: Following the release of Caliptra 2.1 RTL, the project continues to expand with features like OCP LOCK integration and post-quantum cryptographic capabilities. We are also exploring a conformance/certification program to further industry adoption.
  • OpenPRoT: We are excited to advance OpenPRoT, a new project focused on portable an open-source firmware stack for silicon Roots of Trust (RoT) platforms, currently in the architecture phase led by contributors from AMD and Google.

Formation of SystemVerilog Tools and F4PGA Projects

  • SystemVerilog (SV) Tools: Reflecting the ongoing work within our SystemVerilog Tools Working Group, we’re bringing impactful projects like Verible, RISCV-DV, SV-Tests and Synlig together under a single umbrella to better support project maintainers with TAC representation, marketing, and legal resources.
  • F4PGA: Likewise, the F4PGA Working Group has been working on breaking down barriers for FPGA hardware developers. We’re bringing these efforts together to join the TAC as we work to amplify their impact through increased marketing and awareness.

AI & Future Innovation

  • AI for Chip Design: We are actively exploring the formation of an AI/ML workgroup to develop open-source frameworks for agentic AI in EDA, potentially in collaboration with academic partners UC San Diego, Arizona State University, University of Minnesota and Texas A&M.
  • Coral NPU: Discussions are underway regarding the potential contribution of the Coral NPU to CHIPS Alliance, which would provide a full-stack, open-source platform for edge AI.

3. Upcoming Events

Connect with us at these key events in 2026:

  • OCP EMEA Summit: April 29–30, Barcelona (CFP open until Feb 9). We’ll be hosting a booth and presenting several talks.
  • Latch-up 2026: May 1–3, Ontario, Canada.
  • DAC 2026: July 26–29, Long Beach, CA. We have proposed an Engineering Track session focused on “The Evolution of Collaborative Open Source Hardware Development”, and will be sponsoring the Open-Source EDA Birds-of-a-Feather Session.

Get Involved

The strength of CHIPS Alliance lies in its members. Whether you are interested in shaping the future of secure silicon via Caliptra, improving open PDKs, or defining the next generation of AI-driven chip design - now is the time to engage.

Thank you for your continued commitment to open hardware.

The CHIPS Alliance Governing Board

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