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GoIT Project

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The GoIT Project (Grant Agreement No. 101070660) was a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) project funded under the European Union's Horizon Europe framework, specifically under call HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-05: Open Source Hardware for ultra-low-power, secure processors. The project started on 1 September 2022 and was supposed to last 3 years. On 11 April 2025 the Coordinator signed a self-termination amendment with retroactive End-of-Work date set to 28 February 2025. The European Commission signed the amendment on 16 May 2025 thereby terminating the project on the same day. The project was coordinated by the Institute of Electronics and Computer Science (EDI) in Latvia.


Consortium members

  1. Elektronikas un Datorzinatnu Instituts (EDI), Latvia (coordinator)
  2. Sorbonne Université (SU), France
  3. Free Silicon Foundation (I) ETS, Italy
  4. Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain
  5. FibraServi (FS), Belgium
  6. G-INP/CIME-P, France

Proposal and transparency commitment

Under the initiative of the Free Silicon Foundation (I), all Parties joining the Consortium were requested to agree to publish the resulting proposal: The submitted manuscript (after redacting only Work Package 5) is available for download here. For maximizing transparency, the Consortium committed in the proposal to publish all deliverables (including the reports in WP7 later marked as sensitive) except those in WP5, and to publish all milestones.

Objectives

GoIT aimed to structure and support a European open-source silicon ecosystem. Key goals included:

  • Creating three roadmaps for the development of open-source silicon in Europe
  • Developing a copyleft, GPL-compatible hardware licence
  • Organizing annual community-building conferences (Free Silicon Conference)
  • Fostering academic engagement in open silicon
  • Packaging EDA tools for mainstream GNU/Linux distributions
  • Identifying gaps in EDA tools, IP maturity, and certification practices

Grant Agreement (GA) changes vs. submitted proposal

On 18 March 2022 the European Commission shared with the Consortium the evaluation results and started the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP). Based on the argument that the Free Silicon Foundation was (i) not validated by REA - the EC's validation service, and (ii) "finacially weak" based on REA's examination, the Project Officer (PO) mandated (a) a "drastic decrease" of the tasks allocated to FSI and (b) a change of coordinator. Despite FSI acquired legal personality on 13 April 2022 and offered to inject 500kEUR of private capital, the PO replied that "In view of the interest of the European Commission I am obliged to insist on a consortium set-up that holds the promise to carry out the project as proposed and favorably evaluated. This implies in particular that the coordinator having a decisive role for the success of the project is a well established entity."

As a consequence:

  1. The coordinator role was transferred from FSI to EDI
  2. Several tasks originally assigned to FSI were assigned to other Partners, including:
    1. the leadership of writing three Roadmaps was transferred from FSI to EDI
    2. the leadership of Work Package 1 ("Roadmapping and direct technical coordination") was transferred from FSI to EDI
    3. the task of organizing an (economic-)Sustainability Session at three Free Silicon Conferences was transferred from FSI to SU
    4. FSI was not permitted to deliver the planned university talks in countries where other partners are based, and later in locations closer to those partners
    5. The 100'000EUR budget to engage a lawyer to support the development of a GPL-compatible copyleft hardware licence was transferred from FSI to EDI while FSI retained the leadership and responsibility for this task
  3. The FSI budget was diminished to 49% of the original value

List of Work Packages (WP)

  • WP1: Roadmapping and direct technical coordination (leader: EDI)
  • WP2: Sustainability and licences (leader: FSI)
  • WP3: Hub of open-source EDA software and hardware libraries, from high-level design to layout (physical synthesis) (leader: EDI)
  • WP4: Certifications and standards (leader: CSIC)
  • WP5: Open-source Process Design Kit (PDK), PDK compatibility with open-source EDA tools, open-source standard-cell libraries (leader: G-INP)
  • WP6: Open source for hardware Root-of-Trust (RoT) components (leader: CSIC)
  • WP7: Project Management (leader: EDI)

List of milestones and status

The table below summarizes the status of all milestones after the Project end.

In the original proposal milestones 14 and 15 were foreseen to be published, but they were later turned into sensitive. In the second Review Report it was noted "Reportedly completed but categorized as confidential; the inventory is not accessible for verification." FSI did not access them either.

Milestone 5 ("Finalization and announcement of the novel licence") is essentially complete. It only remains to publicly announce the results, but this is actively impeded by EDI which claims to be the only rightful owner of the licence as documented below:

✖ means not submitted or rejected. ✔ and ✔ mean completed or submitted (see "Comments" column).

# Milestone name + URL if available WP # Lead Verification Due month Status Comments
1 Map of expertise across EU WP1 EDI online check 12 ✖
2 FSiC2023 WP1 FSI participation 11 ✔
3 FSiC2024 WP1 FSI participation 23 ✔
4 FSiC2025 WP1 FSI participation 35 ✔
5 Finalization and announcement of the novel licence WP2 FSI online check 36 ✔ Draft ready. EDI prevented publication.
6 Survey of open-source EDA tools, published on the hub web page WP3 EDI online check 12 ✔ Inside deliverable D3.1
7 Update the open-source EDA hub and report compilation and testing results (web page) WP3 EDI online check 24 ✖
8 Public hardware repository WP3 EDI online check 30 ✖
9 Update the open-source EDA hub (web page) WP3 EDI online check 30 ✖
10 Software packages of selected interoperable open-source EDA tools WP3 EDI online check 36 ✖
11 Organization of a workshop on open source hardware and cybersecurity WP4 CSIC participation 24 ✔
12 Organization of a workshop on open source hardware and artificial intelligence WP4 CSIC participation 28 ✖
13 Organization of a workshop on open source hardware, digital forensics, audit and certification WP4 CSIC participation 32 ✖
14 Inventory of the most promising European technologies candidates for an open-source PDK WP5 G-INP online check sensitive 12 ✔ Sensitive. Reviewers and FSI had no copy.
15 Inventory of the most promising European technologies candidates for a PDK compatible with open-source EDA tools WP5 G-INP online check sensitive 12 ✔ Sensitive. Reviewers and FSI had no copy.
16 Map/survey/cartography of the open-source standard -cell libraries (web presence) WP5 SU online check 12 ✔
17 Preliminary release of standard-cell libraries and analog, mixed-signal blocks for selected process nodes (software) WP5 SU online check 24 ✔ Never acknowledge in any Review Report
18 Update the survey of the open-source standard-cell libraries (web presence) WP5 SU online check 36 ✔ Never acknowledge in any Review Report
19 Final release of standard-cell libraries and analog, mixed-signal blocks for selected process nodes (software) WP5 SU online check 36 ✖
20 Newsletter to disseminate available repositories among subscribers WP6 CSIC online check 12 ✔
21 Organization of an open discussion panel to fix strategies around open ad-hoc RoTs WP6 CSIC participation 15 ✔ Video recordings available
22 Organization of an international student contest to promote open hardware for security purposes WP6 CSIC participation 30 ✖

List of deliverables and status

The table below summarizes the status of all deliverables after the Project end based on the data in the three Review Reports:

✖ means not submitted. ✔ means accepted.

Deliverable Deliverable name + URL if available WP Lead Due month Status
D1.1 First roadmap WP1 EDI 10 ✖
D1.2 Second roadmap WP1 EDI 24 ✖
D1.3 Third roadmap WP1 EDI 36 ✖
D2.1 Report on activities and licence development WP2 FSI 12 ✔
D2.2 Second report on activities and licence development WP2 FSI 24 ✔
D3.1 Report on requirements, methodology and structure of the hardware repository WP3 SU 12 ✔
D3.2 Report on the status of the hardware repository, its structure and tools WP3 SU 18 ✖
D3.3 Report on hardware repository statistics, contributors and future prospects WP3 EDI 36 ✖
D4.1 Report on the main initiatives in open source hardware WP4 CSIC 12 ✔
D4.2 Report describing goals, communication strategy and target audience ... WP4 CSIC 20 ✔
D4.3 Report on the conclusions from the workshops organized to foster the interaction between the open hardware, standards and certification communities WP4 CSIC 36 ✖
D5.1 Intermediate report on the results of the negotiations with foundries WP5 G-INP 24 ✖
D5.2 Intermediate report on the actions to release PDKs compatible with open-source EDA tools WP5 G-INP 24 ✖
D5.3 Final report on the perspectives towards open-source PDKs WP5 G-INP 36 ✖
D5.4 Final report on the support actions for the distribution of PDKs compatible with open-source EDA tools WP5 G-INP 36 ✖
D6.1 Report on future prospects to boost open hardware for securing embedded systems WP6 CSIC 36 ✔
D7.1 Project management plan (including initial Data Management Plan) WP7 EDI 3 ✔ (not public)
D7.2 Intermediate report WP7 EDI 18 ✔ (not public)
D7.3 Final report WP7 EDI 36 ✖

Consortium dynamics

Forced change of Coordinator and redistribution of tasks

During the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP) phase, the mandate of the Project Officer (PO) to change the coordinator ignited the first tensions within the consortium. First, indeed, it was attempted to move the coordinator role from FSI to SU, but the higher monthly salaries of SU and the extra Person-Months (PMs) requested by SU were incompatible with PO's constraints. The proposal of balancing the extra cost by removing the organization of the Free Silicon Conferences from the proposal were dismissed by the PO: "Most of what you write is basically bad news and calls into question, whether the GAP can further proceed for the following reasons: 1. Reducing tasks alters the proposal, as it was evaluated. Therefore, the evaluation result is not valid any longer and thus I must insist that the proposed change to suppress those conferences is not executed. [..]". At last, EDI accepted to overtake the coordinator role thereby saving the project. This was possible because the change did not affect the overall budget thanks to the lower monthly personnel costs of EDI compared to FSI. The PO finally approved the change, but with restrictions: "I have decided to give it a chance. However, I have ticked reinforced monitoring, which means that the consortium has to report travel intentions upfront to me seeking for approval. Please let FSI already know that I will reject every travel that is for giving a talk in one of the member states in which another partner of the consortium is residing. If such travel still occurs, I will reject the cost accordingly."

Early symptoms of under-performance

Shortly after its beginning, the project started to accumulate delays. Out of the following Milestones which had to be delivered within the first 12 months:

  1. M1: Map of expertise across EU,
  2. M2: FSiC2023,
  3. M6: Survey of open-source EDA tools,
  4. M14: Inventory of the most promising European technologies candidates for an open-source PDK,
  5. M15: Inventory of the most promising European technologies candidates for a PDK compatible with open-source EDA tools,
  6. M16: Map/survey/cartography of the open-source WP5 standard-cell libraries,
  7. M20: Newsletter to disseminate repositories among subscribers,

only M2 (FSiC2023, by FSI), M16 (Map/survey/cartography of the open-source WP5 standard-cell libraries by SU) and M20 (Newsletter to disseminate repositories among subscribers by CSIC) have been published or have been accessible to the reviewers by the end of the project.

As leader of Work Package 2 (WP2), FSI felt increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of updates from SU. Amicable requests for a meeting were dismissed by SU ("it is impossible for us to have regular meetings on WP2 as we are more involved in WP3", "GoIT is a small project and till now, we have more meetings and implications than in our other projects"). The coordinator could finally enforce a first WP2 meeting on 27 April 2023 (month 8). The minutes of the meeting report that: 1. SU does not want to contact "large game-openers" (task 2.1) until the EDA tools developed in-house (Coriolis) are fully working, and 2. SU does not want to risk spending money for "stands at most relevant conferences" (task 2.4) since the material for stands is very costly without the PO explicitly confirming. The tensions between FSI and SU increased further during the organisation of the "Sustainability Session" at the 2023 Free Silicon Conference. This task, originally allocated to FSI, was reallocated to SU following PO's mandate to reallocate FSI's tasks. The Sustainability Session, as clearly specified by the context of the proposal and as acknowledge in deliverable D2.1, had to address the economic sustainability of the open-source ecosystem rather than the ecological/green sustainability. Except for the speaker invited by FSI (Hess) the other four talks (Bol, Pelcat, Quilici, Fennis) were -even if interesting- formally off-topic with respect to the GoIT project. The poor performance on the "economic-sustainability" aspects was later confirmed by the Review Reports. The situation worsened during FSiC2024 when the Sustainability Session was announced on a website entitled "Ceci n'est pas un Département" (https://largo.lip6.fr/en/events/). This website reported 6 speakers, 5 of whom finally attended, 3 abstracts and 0 videos (despite money was budgeted and spent for the recording). None of the talks (despite being interesting) addressed the economic sustainability topic foreseen by the GoIT project.

Delays in sub-contracting the lawyer to support the development of a GPL-compatible copyleft hardware licence

Work Package 2 faced delays also on the front of the GPL-compatible copyleft hardware licence development (task 2.6 and 2.7). While the leadership and the responsibility of these tasks remained on FSI, the PO mandated that the budget of 100kEUR to engage a lawyer to be reallocated from FSI to EDI. This created a paradoxical situation where the responsibility and the control of the tasks had been separated. Despite numerous reminders and several iterations on requirements and specifications, EDI failed to publish the tender to engage the lawyer for over 20 months from the Project begin, seriously compromising the associated tasks and deliverables. Given that time was running out, FSI called for a Consortium General Assembly to evaluate whether EDI was in breach of contract. The General Assembly took place on 15 May 2024 -the day before the first official Project Review Meeting- and EDI finally published the very same day the first tender. However, without consulting FSI, EDI set a submission deadline as short as two weeks and requested the application to be submitted in Latvian. Following FSI's protest, the deadline was then extended to 3 July 2025 and submissions in English were accepted too. Ironically, despite months of previous discussions, FSI was not consulted for the preparation of the last version of the tender which set requirements that FSI considered nearly impossible to satisfy. Indeed, the only person who applied was rejected for not qualifying to the call. EDI issued then a second tender, the same applicant applied again and he was finally engaged starting from 1 September 2024 (exactly two years from Project's begin, and just 6 months before the retroactive End-of-Work date of 28 February 2025). Despite the difficult circumstances, FSI and the lawyer worked intensively together and could develop in record time a first draft of the licence. EDI -which played only the administrative role of budget "gateway" for the European Commission- is now currently disallowing FSI from publishing the licence claiming sole ownership. See the section about the current status for more details.

"Bad-faith" allegations, breach/default/termination votes on FSI, retroactive End-of-Work date

  • 2024/08/07: One month after the first Review Report and under the initiative of SU based on Art. 4.1 of the Consortium Agreement (general rules/good faith), the Consortium General Assembly voted FSI in "breach-of-contract" based on the accusation that "FSI did not agree that SU became the coordinator at the beginning of the project, that FSI contacted the director of SU, that FSI did not share a link to a list of open-source EDA tools" -allegations which arguably fall well below the threshold of "bad-faith" under Belgian law. FSI firmly protested the assertions and replied that "SU could not be the coordinator because of the impossibility to keep the same person-months without increasing the budget", "that it is FSI’s duty to contact a superior if an employee cuts the communications", and that "the questioned link can be easily found online and that no email request was made." Incidentally, the questioned link referred to the list of open-source EDA tools curated by FSI which contains a list of over 400 tools (describing core identifiers, classification, function/flow, licence, dependencies when present, I/O formats, maturity) in contrast to SU's Deliverable 6 ("Survey of open-source EDA tools, published on the hub web page") which contains 36 tools ("git" listed among them) along with "Name, Link, Main Maintainer, Licence, Description, Comments", and which was published inside Deliverable D3.1.
  • 2024/08/28: On the EU portal, the PO writes to the Coordinator: "When are you going to have the next GA in order to decide on the vote against [FSI] for breach of contract?".
  • 2024/09/04: On the EU portal, the PO writes to the Coordinator: "What is the state of play on the situation of FSI in the project, i.e. has the allegation of breach of contract been confirmed in another GA meeting recently or is this still pending?".
  • 2024/09/27: FSI receives a registered-mail Formal Notification from EDI (personal delivery, registered-mail or telefax are mandatory for Formal Notifications under Consortium Agreement Art.11.3).
  • 2024/10/14: FSI’s law firm serves a five-page notice which: (i) contests the breach allegation; (ii) notes that none of the parties have, at any moment, provided FSI with a conclusive or cogent overview of what caused this breach or how it could be remedied; (iii) notes that FSI has performed all of the foreseen tasks under the Grant Agreement; (iv) accuses the other beneficiaries of bad faith; (v) invokes Consortium Agreement Art. 11.8 and expressly proposes mediation.
  • 2024/10/15: Despite the unresolved mediation request, and despite the 30-day cure period foreseen by Art. 4.2 of the Consortium Agreement did not elapse, the General Assembly votes FSI “Defaulting Party” and decides to terminate its participation.
  • In the following months and until the Project end, FSI remains a full beneficiary of the Grant Agreement: No Amendment of the Grant Agreement requesting FSI’s exclusion is approved or even drafted. FSI continues to work and deliver under the Grant Agreement and it continues maintaining (even after the Project end) critical infrastructure of the Project (including etherpad, nextcloud and the official Project website itself.
  • 2024/10/17: On the EU portal, the PO writes to the Coordinator: "If I understand the situation correctly FSI has been voted off by the consortium being in breach of contract. Although I do not know your Consortium Agreement I assume that this has immediate effect, i.e. any activity of FSI in the project is terminated and FSI cannot represent the consortium any longer."
  • 2025/02/14: EDI asks the Consortium (FSI included) to vote per email by 24 February about the submission of a self-termination Amendment of the Grant Agreement with End-of-Work date on 28 February 2025.
  • 2025/02/28: Based on Section 6.3.5.4 of the Consortium Agreement, FSI vetoes the decision of self-termination taken without a meeting.
  • 2025/03/17: FSI sends a first Formal Notification to EU explaining the situation and suggesting "to launch an "EU-initiated GA suspension" according to GA Art. 31.2.1 of the parts of the grant affected by poor performance as indicated by the Review Report".
  • 2025/03/27: FSI sends a second Formal Notification to EU informing EU about the on-going activities which risk to be damaged by a termination.
  • 2025/04/09: FSI sends a third Formal Notification to EU informing EU that "we [FSI] continue to deliver on our project responsibilities — including ongoing license development and the organization of the Free Silicon Conference 2025 — and have accumulated over €10,000 in unreimbursed project costs" and asking EU to "1. Clarify our official status within the consortium under the Grant Agreement; 2. Confirm whether the Coordinator is authorized to withhold our share of the payments in the absence of a formal amendment or decision; 3. Ensure that funds legally owed to us under the Grant Agreement are disbursed appropriately."
  • 2025/04/28: The Project Officer asks the Coordinator: "The old GA amendment request (restructuring the consortium and change of coordinator) is still in the system. Could you please delete this amendment so as to clean up the system? I have also asked you for a confirmation that my administration would like to have before signing the termination amendment, namely that the termination request has been submitted in line with the rules of the CA. Could you please provide me with this confirmation at your earliest convenience."
  • 2025/05/15 (one day before EU's signature of the retroactive amendment): The Coordinator replies to the PO: I hereby confirm that that the termination is supported by the Consortium in line with the rules of the CA, i.e. that the rules of the CA were followed. In particular: Section 6.3.7 of the CA: Decisions of the General Assembly Permitting the Consortium to take decisions, including "Proposal to the Granting Authority for termination of the Project and the Consortium Agreement". Section 6.3.3 of the CA: Decisions without a meeting Permitting the Consortium to take "any decision" without a meeting, given that: - "The Coordinator circulates to all Members of the General Assembly a suggested decision with a deadline for responses of at least 10 calendar days after receipt by a Party and" - "the decision is agreed upon by majority of all Parties."
  • 2025/10/25: (Ares(2025)9133478), well after the Project termination, EU answers the three above-mentioned Formal Notifications to EU claiming that "the Commission does not enter into the application of the consortium agreement adopted by consortium members and disputes between consortium members." and that "In the particular case of the project GOIT, cost incurred after receipt of the review outcome letter [..], sent 28 January 2025 is not eligible for reimbursement, as it cannot be considered as ‘reasonable’, ‘necessary for the project implementation’ and complying with the principle of 'sound financial management (regarding economy and efficiency [i.e. be in line with good housekeeping practice when spending public money])."

Project timeline

Below is the timeline of the Project. Consortium-related events are not listed here.

  • 2021/09/28-2021/10/21: FSI coordinates the creation of the Consortium and the writing of the proposal. As a necessary condition to participate all Partners are requested that the proposal manuscript will be published.
    • M.M. Louerat (SU) is asked on 2021/09/28. She will later ask S. Verhaegen (FS) on 2021/10/13, P. Brox (CSIC) on 2021/10/11. P. Brox introductes D. Arroyo (CSIC) on 2021/10/11.
    • L.Alloatti asks Kaspars Ozols (EDI) on 2021/09/29 who then introduces Rihards Novickis who will become the coordinator as a consequence of the requests of the Project Officer before signing the Grant Agreement.
    • L.Alloatti asks Kholdoun Torki (G-INP, formerly CIME-P, formerly CMP) on 2021/10/7
  • Early march: First non-official rumours spread suggesting that the proposal was successful.
  • 2022/03/18: The European Commission notifies the original Coordinator (FSI) that the proposal was accepted and it reached the stage of Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP).
  • 2022/03/22-2022/04/25: The Project Officier (PO) M. Korn mandates a change of Coordinator, requires that the tasks of FSI are drastically reduced, and enforces “reinforced monitoring” on all travelling activities implying that all travelling must be approved by the PO in advance.
  • 2022/03/23: FSI offers up to half a million EUR assets to increase the financial capacity of the association which the EC classified as “weak”.
  • 2022/04/13: The Free Silicon Foundation (I) ETS acquires legal personality through a public notary act.
  • 2022/04/25: EDI becomes the new Coordinator
  • 2022/06/13: End of the Grant Agreement Preparation phase. The Commission signs the Grant Agreement.
  • 2022/09/01: Project starting date
  • 2023-2024: Delays across multiple WPs. Some partners report limited staffing or activity.
  • 2024/05/16: First Review Meeting
  • 2024/07/03: First Review Report. Excerpts: "corrective action will be required", "it is recommended that all ongoing activities in WP4 and WP6 cease with immediate effect as they are no longer demonstrably relevant", "Economic sustainability [..] has not been sufficiently worked out so far", "the project did not adequately consider the economic sustainability nor engaged a sufficiently broad industrial representation."
  • 2024/12/17: Second Review Meeting
  • 2024/01/28: Second Review Report. Excerpts: "The project has failed to achieve critical objectives and/or milestones and/or is severely delayed", "the review team recommends that the project be terminated", "irrecoverable delays are apparent in all core activities (e.g. licensing model, Open PDK status, etc.). While the objectives of WPs 1-3 remain somewhat relevant, they are no longer achievable within the remaining timeframe."
  • 2025/02/28: Retroactive End-of-Work date (signed on 2025/05/16)
  • 2025/04/11: EDI signs and submits a self-termination amendment (AMD-11) with retroactive End-of-Work set to 2025/02/28. Beneficiaries are formally still bound by the Grant Agreement to deliver.
  • 2025/05/16: The EU signs the amendment (AMD-11). The project is terminated on the 2025/05/16 with retroactive End-of-Work set to 2025/02/28.
  • 2025/08/31: Original project end date (superseded by the self-termination amendment)
  • 2025/09/04: Third and final Review Meeting
  • 2025/10/10: Third and final Review Report

Observations to EU

On 2025/11/09 FSI submitted to EU the attached "Observations" to the draft Final Review package (Ares(2025)8633621, 10 October 2025) and the Pre-information letter on the payment of the balance (Ares(2025)9113272, 24 October 2025).

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