CHERIoT Platform

window.onload = function() { wavedrom.processAll(); }; Motivation C and C++ are low-level languages, nominally especially well suited for working with hardware and in performance-sensitive data processing applications, and yet, they lack convenient, porta

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Most CHERIoT work to date has been done on software or FPGA simulations. We have several such implementations: The executable model built from our formal ISA specification, the MPact simulator from Google, Microsoft's CHERIoT SAFE FPGA target for the Arty

We have been working on porting Rust to the CHERIoT platform for about half a year now. We have been busy with the implementation of fundamental features such as defining the new target, adapting the compiler to respect the nuances of a CHERI platform - s

Each year, MITRE publishes a list of the top 25 most dangerous software weaknesses. The 2025 list is interesting reading. Let's see how CHERIoT fares against them.

When you tell everyone you're building a secure platform, the first thing that they ask about is encryption. And, in 2025, the hot topic in encryption is algorithms that are safe from hypothetical quantum computers that, unlike real ones, can factorise nu

In the last month or so (partly as a result of going to SOSP), I've seen a lot of architecture diagrams for operating systems and one thing has struck me about all of them: they put the device drivers in the wrong place. Here, for example, is TockOS:

The recent UKRI press release announcing £21M for CHERI projects includes two CHERIoT-focused activities. The tools programme, in particular, has funded SCI Semiconductor to bring Rust support for CHERIoT to production quality. This is being done in close

Recently, a few people have asked me 'should we do CHERI or CHERIoT?' I hadn't previously written an answer to this because the question doesn't make sense: it's like asking 'should we do MMUs or x86 page tables?' Since it's been asked several times, I th

Sealing is one of the oldest parts of CHERI and one of the most powerful. When I joined the project in 2012 it was integral to the early prototype call-gate mechanism. You can find this version in our 2014 tech report. It included CSealCode and CSealData