lowRISC is a fantastic initiative to build a fully open source, Linux-capable, 64-bit RISC-V based system-on-chip. Not only this, but a SoC design with additional interesting features such as programmable I/O — think along the lines of XMOS devices — and tagged memory.

At the present time the design can be targeted to FPGA, but there are plans for volume silicon and a low cost development board that utilises this. In this interview filmed in April of last year, lowRISC Director and Co-founder, Alex Bradbury, introduces the project, its aims and associated challenges, and encourages potential contributors to get involved.

Alex will be providing a lowRISC project update at ORConf in Hebden Bridge in a little under two weeks. You should definitely get along if you can!