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The FOSSi Foundation (short for Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation) is a non-profit foundation with the mission to promote and protect the open source silicon chip movement.[1] It was set up by the core OpenRISC development team in response to decreasing support from the commercial owners of the opencores.org website. It is established as a community interest company in the United Kingdom.

Since inception, FOSSi Foundation has supported the community with various activities.

Events

FOSSi Foundation was founded at ORConf, which was originally the OpenRISC conference that started in 2011. ORConf has grown from a small developer meeting to the leading event on open source silicon, each year visiting another city in Europe.

To reach larger audiences, the sister event Latch-Up was established in North America in 2019.

Project Support

FOSSi Foundation does not develop open source projects, but supports them with operational, technical and legal support. Prominent examples of projects that are supported by FOSSi Foundation are cocotb, LibreLane and Embench.

Advocacy and Public Policy

FOSSi Foundation supports the community with advocacy targeted at the broader public, industry and public bodies. In particular it hosts and supports open letters, coordinated a roadmap on open source EDA, and hosts the Open Design Environment for European Chips initiative.

History

During 2015, ORSoC AB, commercial owners of opencores.org formed a joint venture with KNCMiner AB to develop bitcoin mining machines. As this became the primary focus of the business, they spent less time on the opencores.org project. In response to the growing lack of commitment, the core OpenRISC development team set up the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation (FOSSi), and registered the LibreCores website, as the basis for all future development, independent of commercial control.[2]

In 2016, the LibreCores development intensified and the annual “LibreCores Student Design Contest” was announced[3] The FOSSi Foundation is an umbrella organization in the Google Summer of Code 2016–2020.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ “Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation”. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  2. ^ Announcement of FOSSi at ORConf2015, CERN, Geneva. schedule and video
  3. ^ Announcement on the mailing list.
  4. ^ FOSSi in the Google Summer of Code