Hello wonderful people! I'm bunnie - just noticed this is on HN. Unfortunately due to timezones I'm about to afk for a bit. I'll check back when I can, and try to answer questions that accumulate here.
K0balt•Mar 14, 2026
Very cool! So there’s 5x riscV cores available?
bunnie•Mar 14, 2026
Yes, 1x Vexriscv RV32-IMAC + MMU, and 4x PicoRV32's as RV32E-MC for I/O processing, configured with extensions to enable deterministic, real-time bit-banging without having to count clocks.
K0balt•Mar 14, 2026
Nice! I love the specialized io processors. Fantastic work!
alex7o•Mar 14, 2026
That reminds me a lot of the xmos xcore mcus with 8 cores. I am curious what kind of synchronization primitives have you added and why?
bunnie•Mar 14, 2026
I'm actually working on a comprehensive write up on exactly this topic that should be out sometime next week!
K0balt•Mar 14, 2026
Just ordered 2 to play with!
cmrdporcupine•Mar 14, 2026
Sounds like the Parallax Propeller 1/2 as well.
It's a good model for MCU stuff. There were people pushing Chip Gracey (Parallax) to use RISC-V instead of his custom ISA when he designed the P2 a few years ago, but he chose to do his own thing. Which has made compiler development difficult.
K0balt•Mar 14, 2026
This seems more on the RPI side rather than propeller, propeller was never a really good choice for production integration. This looks like it could hold its own in many contexts.
mijoharas•Mar 14, 2026
Cool project. Why is it called the Baochip/Dabao?
Is it big Bao? Or take-away (just learnt the second meaning), or something else?
JSR_FDED•Mar 14, 2026
I think it’s take-away, or to go. Like when you order some food to go.
bunnie•Mar 14, 2026
Personally, I love eating "bao" (a style of dumplings), but also coincidentally, a homophone of "bao" in Chinese (different character 保, similar sound) has a meaning of "protect; defend. keep; maintain; preserve. guarantee; ensure". So it means both things to me - one of my favorite foods, and also describes the technology.
"dabao" is just a pun on that - means "take-away" or "to-go". The dabao evaluation board is basically a baochip in a "to-go" package.
chuckadams•Mar 14, 2026
That would explain the naming of OpenBao, a fork of Hashicorp Vault. Goes with the other fork's name (OpenTofu) as well as the meaning you just mentioned.
bArray•Mar 14, 2026
> Those with a bit of silicon savvy would note that it’s not cheap to produce such a chip, yet, I have not raised a dollar of venture capital. I’m also not independently wealthy. So how is this possible?
What kind of order of magnitude of cost are we talking about?
What are the next steps - is there some service to cut the wafer and put into a package for you?
bunnie•Mar 14, 2026
The masks alone are single digit millions, but with all the design tools and staff costs typically tens of millions is the benchmark number for a tape out in this node.
After coming out of the fab, the chips go through probing, packaging and reeling.
crote•Mar 14, 2026
Can you share something about the subsequent per-chip manufacturing costs?
gzread•Mar 14, 2026
This is about transparency just like the Precursor, right? How can I know that my Baochip-1x is really what it says it is?
bunnie•Mar 14, 2026
The Baochip is packaged in a form of package that is inspectable using IRIS. [1] It does not give perfect verification but it's the best I can offer until we have more open PDKs.
bunnie your book "Hacking the XBox" taught me how to get started on reversing electronics, took the fear out of the process, and replaced it with fun. Thanks for the multi-decades long effort you've made to make these tools available and accessible and approachable, your contributions to the hacker community are immeasurable and I cannot say thank you enough.
Thanks man!
intrasight•Mar 14, 2026
I didn't know there were partially open source RISC-V. I might have missed it in the article, but what was the reason for having some parts closed source?
theParadox42•Mar 14, 2026
It’s not the RISC-V core itself, it’s just some of the surrounding architecture to support the CPU, to turn it into a SOC. So the USB drivers, the AXI memory interfaces, and the analog components, like PLLs for generating clocks, or even the IO pad drivers. These components take the fully open RISC-V core which works in a simulator and makes it work like a normal physical chip would.
alexisread•Mar 14, 2026
Great work on the chip, I’m really onboard with the trusted computing aim!
Is there a way to bootstrap binary code into the reram? I’m thinking being able to ‘hand-type’ in a few hundred byte kernel rather than use a flashing tool
arj•Mar 14, 2026
It seems it had hardware support for secure mesh. Anyone know what that is?
crote•Mar 14, 2026
With the right equipment it is possible to probe the inside of a chip, allowing an attacker to measure or even alter internal signals down to the transistor level. Expensive, but very useful if it lets you extract a crucial shared secret.
The traditional defense against this kind of invasive attack is to put a grid of sense wires on the outermost metal layer, and measuring whether it has been tampered with: you can't get to the important bits without cutting through the security grid, but any kind of modification to the security grid triggers a self-destruct.
chuckadams•Mar 14, 2026
> What’s a banker going to do with the source code of a chip, anyway?
Hand it to someone who does know what to do with it. It's not as important who initially gets the source so much as having it available when it is needed.
Dani99•Mar 14, 2026
Moonton Mobile legend mm level15
genxy•Mar 14, 2026
To anyone from crowdsupply listening, please turn down your VPN check. I am not stripping my privacy protection to use your site.
*edit, Crowdsupply does a full block on multiple VPN providers. There is no way to access their site without turning off your VPN.
vintagedave•Mar 14, 2026
This is wonderful! Also what a fantastic partnership that allowed adding a new CPU to that die. Kudos to them.
I had a lot of trouble finding out which open source license applies. Wikipedia’s RISC-V page doesn’t seem to say; its citation for being released under open source doesn’t seem to say which one either.[0] Could be wrong. Exhausted after working all day. But it’s not front and center…
On the RISC-V site I thought it might be more prominent too but if it is I missed it. I found some docs there licensed Creative Commons. Is that the license for the entire CPU? Even layouts and everything that is past the ISA to actual silicon?
15 Comments
It's a good model for MCU stuff. There were people pushing Chip Gracey (Parallax) to use RISC-V instead of his custom ISA when he designed the P2 a few years ago, but he chose to do his own thing. Which has made compiler development difficult.
Is it big Bao? Or take-away (just learnt the second meaning), or something else?
"dabao" is just a pun on that - means "take-away" or "to-go". The dabao evaluation board is basically a baochip in a "to-go" package.
What kind of order of magnitude of cost are we talking about?
What are the next steps - is there some service to cut the wafer and put into a package for you?
After coming out of the fab, the chips go through probing, packaging and reeling.
[1] https://bunnie.org/iris
Thanks man!
Is there a way to bootstrap binary code into the reram? I’m thinking being able to ‘hand-type’ in a few hundred byte kernel rather than use a flashing tool
The traditional defense against this kind of invasive attack is to put a grid of sense wires on the outermost metal layer, and measuring whether it has been tampered with: you can't get to the important bits without cutting through the security grid, but any kind of modification to the security grid triggers a self-destruct.
Hand it to someone who does know what to do with it. It's not as important who initially gets the source so much as having it available when it is needed.
*edit, Crowdsupply does a full block on multiple VPN providers. There is no way to access their site without turning off your VPN.
I had a lot of trouble finding out which open source license applies. Wikipedia’s RISC-V page doesn’t seem to say; its citation for being released under open source doesn’t seem to say which one either.[0] Could be wrong. Exhausted after working all day. But it’s not front and center…
On the RISC-V site I thought it might be more prominent too but if it is I missed it. I found some docs there licensed Creative Commons. Is that the license for the entire CPU? Even layouts and everything that is past the ISA to actual silicon?
[0] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/188405-risc-rides-agai...
Thank you Bunnie.