CAES Design Win of RISC-V/NOEL-V IP for Idaho Scientific Secure Processor for US Critical Infrastructure

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CAES, a leader in advanced mission-critical electronics for aerospace and defense, announced that it has won its first commercial U.S.-based license for its RISC-V/NOEL-V processor IP with Idaho Scientific, based in Boise, Idaho.

Idaho Scientific specializes in solutions that prevent hardware and software security attacks. These solutions help protect high-reliability systems that support critical infrastructure.

“CAES is excited about this win for our newest generation CPU core. It is especially exciting to see a customer outside of our traditional target section, the Space industry, understanding the value of our IP to offer differentiation for their products and platforms,” said Mike Elias, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Space Systems Division, CAES. 

The announcement builds on a license agreement CAES signed with Idaho Scientific earlier this year for the NOEL-V IP for both FPGA and ASIC instantiations, which allows Idaho Scientific access to the IP’s source code.

Idaho Scientific will utilize the IP in its development of a secure processor that prevents memory corruption, which is a fundamental vulnerability of most commercial processors. This will enable a trusted and secure processing platform that can be utilized by a variety of vital assets.

Having access to the source code of the RISC-V/NOEL-V processor IP allows Idaho Scientific’s designers to build a unique ground up processor architecture which will include their own value-added functionality to maximize mitigation of tampering via cyberattacks.

“Idaho Scientific is proud to collaborate with CAES in developing this next-generation processing technology, which is instrumental to build intelligent, powerful and secure systems for critical infrastructure equipment,” said Dale Reese, President of Idaho Scientific.

“CAES’s RISC-V implementation, the NOEL-V IP, has several features that are critical in the implementation of our unique processing architecture,” said Dan Herway, Vice President of Idaho Scientific. “The fact that we can utilize both our previous work, and also take advantage of open source state-of-the-art software already available for the RISC-V, was a key factor in our selection of CAES IP.”