SiFive Gives WorldGuard to RISC-V International to Make this Robust Security Model More Accessible to the RISC-V Community

The open WorldGuard model provides a system-level approach to securing RISC-V designs

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- May 29, 2023 -- SiFive, Inc., the pioneer and leader of RISC-V computing, today announced the company is giving the WorldGuard security model to RISC-V International, providing the RISC-V community with a uniform way to secure their designs and bring them to market faster. RISC-V International is the non-profit home of the open standard RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), related specifications, and stakeholder community which has more than 3,570 RISC-V members across 70 countries.

WorldGuard makes it easy for developers to enable a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) on RISC-V platforms. As a hardware-enhanced software isolation solution, WorldGuard provides protection against improper access to memory or devices by software applications and other bus initiators (such as DMAs). Designers can quickly create domains, also known as “worlds,” for isolated code execution and data protection. WorldGuard doesn't break the RISC-V ISA and doesn't require new instructions to be used. It simply adds secure metadata to the transactions issued by the various bus initiators and checks permissions against an Access Control List (ACL) at the destination, whether it's memory or a peripheral. The isolation is based on multiple levels of privilege for each world, offering robust SoC-level information control.

“Robust security is fundamental to every silicon design, but many of the latest security solutions are out of reach for developers,” said Dany Nativel, Senior Director, Product Marketing at SiFive. “From the start, our WorldGuard security model was open and freely accessible for developers to secure their designs at a system level. By donating WorldGuard to RISC-V International, we hope that even more developers will take advantage of it so the entire RISC-V ecosystem can benefit.”

WorldGuard provides an open, system-level approach to securing access to system resources (memory and peripherals) by software applications. This approach is ideal for creating multiple trusted environments, enabling a Trusted Computing Base (TCB) where the highest level of trust is limited to the secure ROM boot, the Machine-mode firmware, the secure applications, and the Operating Systems (OSs) that implement them. This base of trust is also referred to as the “Trusted Agent.”

“One of the biggest advantages of RISC-V is the active community that is committed to sharing resources and collaborating. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel, developers can use open tools like WorldGuard to ensure their products are secure and speed up time-to-market,” said Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International. “We appreciate SiFive’s donation of WorldGuard as we all work together to secure the future of RISC-V innovation.”

Ongoing development of WorldGuard will now be managed by RISC-V International. SiFive will continue to contribute its expertise and resources.

About SiFive

As the pioneers who introduced RISC-V to the world, SiFive is transforming the future of compute by bringing the limitless potential of RISC-V to the highest performance and most data-intensive applications in the world. SiFive’s unrivaled compute platforms have enabled leading technology companies around the world to innovate, optimize and deliver the most advanced solutions of tomorrow across every market segment of chip design, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, automotive, data center, mobile, and consumer. With SiFive, the future of RISC-V has no limits. For more information, please visit SiFive.com.