Today marks the start of the Dabao campaign. If you’re interested in open source hardware, security, or trust, I’m offering you a chance to order some of the first evaluation boards for a mostly-open, security-oriented microcontroller.

Dabao is an evaluation board for the Baochip-1x SoC, a microcontroller that raises the bar on inspectable hardware, bringing you a system-on-chip (SoC) that you can check from the silicon all the way to the software. Not only is the entire bootloader open-source and NDA-free, most of the design source for the compute logic is open and NDA-free. To top it off, the chip comes in a package specifically designed to facilitate Infra-Red In-situ (IRIS) inspection - a non-destructive way to look at the silicon and confirm you’ve got the right chip based on the pattern of transistors printed on the silicon itself.

The Baochip-1x features a 350 MHz Vexriscv CPU alongside a quad-core, 700 MHz PicoRV I/O co-processor cluster called the "BIO". Packing a generous 4 MiB of RRAM (similar to FLASH) and 2 MiB of RAM on-chip, it has ample power and flexibility for a wide range of projects.

Baochip-1x is Rust-native, supported by the Xous operating system. Xous is a microkernel operating system with processes, threads, and messages, leveraging the Baochip-1x’s MMU to bring the benefits of virtual memory to small embedded devices. There’s even a vscode plugin to help new users get started with Dabao!

Baochip-1x is built on TSMC’s 22 nm process. As you read this, a small lot of production qualification wafers are hustling through the fab. Because the wafers are already in progress, we can only take orders for up to 3,500 boards, with an estimated delivery date in June, modulo die yield assumptions being met.

We’re pricing the boards starting at $9.50 (not including shipping & handling) - if you’re interested, place your order today. We’re looking forward to seeing what you build with Dabao!

For questions and discussion, find us on Discord or Matrix.

Finally, I’m committed to making the Baochip-1x as accessible as possible to makers and developers everywhere. Dabao is deliberately priced to be affordable; but if you love what’s going on here and have the means and desire to additionally support my work, please consider making a donation during the campaign by selecting one of the "Buy me a beer" or "Support me" pledge options.

Happy hacking,

-b.