Author: Gareth Halfacree

Gareth Halfacree is a technology journalist and technical author best known for his work on the Raspberry Pi User Guide and an upcoming book covering the BBC’s micro:bit project. A keen open source advocate and RISC-V fan, Gareth is responsible for curating our fortnightly community round-up posts.

QuickLogic Launches QuickFeather Fully-Open FPGA Dev Board Crowdfunder

QuickLogic has officially launched the a crowdfunding campaign for the QuickFeather, a Feather-compatible fully-open microcontroller and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board – and AB Open is proud to be its first backer. The QuickFeather – named for its use of the Feather form factor, a gumstick variant designed for… Read More

OpenPOWER Releases BlueGene/Q’s A2I POWER Core As Free and Open Source Silicon

The OpenPOWER Foundation has announced the release of another core design, A2I POWER, under permissive licensing – part of the Foundation’s move to offer an alternative to increasingly popular free and open source silicon efforts like RISC-V. The OpenPOWER Foundation moved to a permissive, open release approach back in… Read More

CRU: Ten Years of OSHUG, OpenHW Group Membership, RISC-V Trace, and More

Last month marks the tenth anniversary of the inaugural meeting of the Open Source Hardware User Group (OSHUG). AB Open’s Andrew Back recalls the founding of OSHUG: “The nascent open hardware movement had started to gather momentum and in December 2009, Nesta, the UK based charity and innovation… Read More

AB Open Joins OpenHW Group to Help Grow The Open Hardware Ecosystem

AB Open is proud to announce its membership of OpenHW Group, a not-for-profit organisation founded to provide an infrastructure for open hardware development with a focus on free and open source silicon, tools, and related software. Founded in June 2019, OpenHW Group aims to encourage adoption of free and open… Read More

The Eclipse Foundation Announces a Move to Europe to Boost Growth

The Eclipse Foundation, which acts as a not-for-profit steward of the Eclipse open source software development community working on projects as diverse as edge computing, artificial intelligence, and free and open source silicon, has announced it is moving to Europe – a move which it says will enable it to… Read More

CERN-OHL v 2.0 Licensed Design by Sam Smith

CERN Launches Open Hardware Licence 2.0 in Reciprocal and Permissive Variants

CERN has officially released version 2.0 of its eponymous Open Hardware Licence (CERN-OHL), designed to simplify the language and make it easier to understand as well as broadening its applicability and introducing three variants for specific requirements. “The CERN-OHL is to hardware what the free and open-source licences are to… Read More

RISC-V Foundation Formally Ratifies the Processor Trace Specification

The RISC-V Foundation has announced the formal ratification of the processor trace specification, introducing a standardised trace encoder algorithm for the free and open-source instruction set architecture as a means of assisting with debugging. “RISC-V is rapidly gaining popularity due to its open and modular design that supports customisation on… Read More

The OpenPOWER Foundation Releases Compliance Definitions, Forms ISA Work Group

The OpenPOWER Foundation has officially released the compliance definition for its now-open instruction set architecture, defining test suite requirements for both POWER8 and POWER9 ISAs, and has pledged to form a new Work Group for ISA-related activities. “There is much excitement in the August 2019 announcement of open-sourcing the POWER… Read More

Call for Participation Opens for OSHCamp 2020 Talks, Workshops

The call for participation in the Open Source Hardware Camp (OSHCamp) 2020 has been placed – in the year which marks the Open Source Hardware User Group’s 10th anniversary. Taking place on Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th of August in Hebden Bridge Town Hall, West Yorkshire, OSHCamp 2020… Read More

Wuthering Bytes 2020 Call for Participation Now Open

The dates for Wuthering Bytes 2020, the latest in the annual week-long celebration of interesting and inspiring technology, have been confirmed as the 28th of August through to the 6th of September inclusive, and the call for participation is now open. “We’re excited to announce that this year the… Read More

ONiO Unveils Energy-Harvesting, Ultra-Low-Power ONiO.zero RISC-V Microcontroller

Internet of Things start-up ONiO has announced a new RISC-V microcontroller, the ONiO.zero, which it claims can be powered purely using energy harvested from the radio-frequency spectrum – no batteries required. “ONiO.zero is an ultra-low-power wireless MCU that uses energy harvesting technology,” ONiO, which focuses on the healthcare side of… Read More

CRU: RISC-V Aplenty, USB3 PIPE Success, An Educational Dev Board, and More

Enjoy Digital has marked off two major milestones in its USB3 PIPE effort to support USB 3.0 on the built-in SerDes high-speed transceivers of major FPGA platforms – using open-source code and an open-source toolchain. “Current solutions for USB 3.0 connectivity with an FPGA require the use of an external… Read More