Baochip-1x: What It Is, Why I'm Doing It Now and How It Came About

https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/what-it-is-why-im-doing-it-now-and-how-it-came-about

#HackerNews #Baochip1x #Baochip #Crowdsupply #TechInnovation #HardwareDevelopment

Dabao is a $10 dev board with an open source Baochip-1x RISC-V microcontroller (crowdfunding)

The Dabao Evaluation board is a tiny new single-board computer with a USB 2.0 Type-C port, a 20-pin GPIO header, and a custom RISC-V chip called the Baochip-1x. It’s that last bit that makes this board distinctive.

Designed by hardware hacker bunnie Huang, the Baochip-1x is a “mostly-open” chip designed for use as a security chip and microcontroller. Huang is running a crowdfunding campaign […]

"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?"

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2026/baochip-1x-a-mostly-open-22nm-soc-for-high-assurance-applications/

#Baochip #Rust #Silicon

A few years ago, I gave a talk at RISC-V on #documentation, with some hints on automatically generating it. They are doing this now in practice for #Baochip:
https://baochip.github.io/baochip-1x/ch00-00-rtl-overview.html

For reference:
https://youtu.be/9WibffkkYNA?t=32m30s

big kudos to @bunnie et al!

Dabao Evaluation Board to Showcase Open-RTL Baochip-1x RISC-V MCU

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://linuxgizmos.com/dabao-evaluation-board-to-showcase-open-rtl-baochip-1x-risc-v-mcu/

The latest #Pluralistic post by @pluralistic is about a very smart #OpenHardware approach: the #Baochip. I know very little about hardware manufacturing, but this looks really cool and feasible.

Go read it at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/09/quantity-break/