Executive Interview with Chris Morrison, VP Product Marketing at Agile Analog

Chris Morrison is VP Product Marketing at Agile Analog, the customizable analog IP company. He has over 18 years’ experience of developing strong relationships with key partners across the semiconductor industry and delivering innovative analog, digital, power management and audio products, working for international companies including Dialog Semiconductor. Chris has an engineering degree in computer and electronic systems from the University of Strathclyde, and a masters’ degree in system level integration from the University of Edinburgh.

Tell us a bit about the GlobalPlatform Pavona initiative? How did this come about?

GlobalPlatform recently launched Pavona, a community-governed open-source silicon distribution, to provide chip designers with certification-ready secure silicon IP components and reference designs for developing embedded and high-performance silicon systems. This initiative is a result of the work of the GlobalPlatform Trusted Open Source Silicon Task Force which identified the need to create a secure, standards-based foundation for open-source silicon development.

What are the key goals of this initiative?

This open-source silicon distribution aims to deliver production-quality, certification-ready IP components and reference top-level designs, providing a composable framework for building secure-by-default silicon aligned with FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria certification requirements.

Previous open source initiatives have focused primarily on individual cores. Pavona evolves beyond single-use, monolithic open-source silicon designs toward a platform that scales across markets and applications. Pavona introduces a modular distribution model with a composition engine and curated IP library. This enables integrators to select, configure and assemble open silicon subsystems tailored to their specific architecture, to deliver innovative solutions for datacenter servers, AI accelerators or IoT devices.

Who are the main founding members? 

Hosted by GlobalPlatform, Pavona is supported by a Governing Board of contributing members who fund the project’s operations, while an independent Technical Steering Committee holds sole responsibility for the project’s technical roadmap and oversight.

Agile Analog is delighted to join major semiconductor players, including Meta, Qualcomm, Analog Devices and zeroRISC, as one of the founding members of GlobalPlatform’s Pavona initiative. The members span a wide range of organizations from across the ecosystem – IP providers, semiconductor companies, software suppliers, standards bodies and end-product stakeholders – ensuring that all areas are considered for successful commercial deployment.

Why did Agile Analog want to be involved?

Analog IP is the critical bridge between the digital security domain and the physical world. Agile Analog’s configurable analog IP, including tamper prevention and tamper detection IP, provides the essential physical security layer to protect Pavona’s digital security stack, strengthening the physical hardware security. We are excited to bring our process-portable analog capabilities into an open ecosystem with this level of security rigor.

What are the initial focus areas of the Pavona initiative?

Pavona launches with two successfully taped-out reference designs: a standalone chip root of trust and an integrated root of trust for chiplet architectures fabricated at TSMC 3nm. The inclusion of silicon-proven reference designs gives the initiative a different starting point from projects that remain solely at the simulation or specification level. Pavona also offers the first openly available silicon distribution featuring a production-grade post-quantum cryptography (PQC) stack for embedded systems, addressing the escalating threat of attacks from future quantum computers.

6) How does this initiative fit with Agile Analog’s portfolio/roadmap?

While Pavona focuses heavily on the digital security stack (such as roots of trust and PQC algorithms like ML-KEM and ML-DSA), digital security is only as good as the hardware it sits on. Agile Analog’s role is to provide the essential physical security layer that wraps around these.

Our agileSecure anti-tamper security IP has become a key part of our product portfolio and we offer solutions that can strengthen hardware security and protect Pavona deployments from supply, clock, thermal and electromagnetic attacks. We will continue to build out our product roadmap to offer additional protection going forward.

CONTACT AGILE ANALOG

Also Read:

Hardening the Silicon: Why Analog Anti-Tamper IP is the New Security Baseline

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Podcast EP319: What Makes Agile Analog a Unique Company with Chris Morrison