New Research Chip from Dresden for Secure Digital Systems
The Barkhausen Institute has developed Masur25, a digital research chip that allows scientists to test new technologies for secure and trustworthy digital systems in a practical setting.
Those looking to develop new digital microchips often face significant obstacles. This is because manufacturing their own chips is complex, expensive, and therefore virtually impossible for many research institutions. A new research chip from Dresden is designed to help overcome these obstacles.
“If we want to design digital systems independently and securely, we must also be able to develop the underlying chips ourselves,” says Prof. Dr. Gerhard Fettweis, founding director and scientific director of the Barkhausen Institute. “Our research result, the Masur25 chip, allows external partner institutions to integrate and test their own modules without having to design and manufacture a complete chip themselves. We shorten development times and thereby significantly reduce costs. In this way, we significantly lower the barriers to entry for our partners in chip design.”
The chip was developed entirely at the Barkhausen Institute in Dresden—from the initial concept through the physical design to testing in the institute’s own laboratory. The institute’s team is already working on the next stage of development. The successor, Masur26, is currently in the so-called tape-out phase. This is the step in which the final design data is transferred to the chip factory for manufacturing. For this, the team—as with Masur25—has very successfully utilized the cloud-based makeChip development environment from the Dresden-based company Racyics GmbH.
For many years, Dresden has been one of the most important locations for European microelectronics. Within the Silicon Saxony network, research institutions and companies here are working on new semiconductor technologies. With its research chips, the Barkhausen Institute builds a unique bridge between university research and the practical development of modern chip architectures.
About the Barkhausen Institute
The Barkhausen Institute (BI) is an internationally recognized research institute conducting cutting-edge research on the trustworthiness of networked electronic systems. With an interdisciplinary, international team, it aims to create a reliable foundation for the Internet of the future and foster trust in digital technologies, particularly through the development of trustworthy platform chips.