| --- |
| title: "Introduction to the OpenTitan Project" |
| --- |
| |
| OpenTitan is a collaborative hardware and software development program with contributors from many organizations. |
| This area gives some more information about how the project itself is organized and how to contribute. |
| More information will be added over time. |
| |
| ## Quality standards for open hardware IP |
| |
| In order to gauge the quality of the different IP that is in our repository, we define a series of [Hardware Development Stages]({{< relref "development_stages" >}}) to track the designs. |
| The current status of different IP is reflected in the [Hardware Dashboard]({{< relref "hw" >}}). |
| The final state for developed IP is *Signed Off*, indicating that design and verification is complete, and the IP should be bug free. |
| To make it to that stage, a [Hardware Signoff Checklist]({{< relref "checklist.md" >}}) is used to confirm completion. |
| [Here](https://github.com/lowRISC/opentitan/blob/master/util/uvmdvgen/checklist.md.tpl) is a template that can be used as a checklist item. |
| |
| ## Contributing |
| |
| See our documentation on [Contributing to OpenTitan]({{< relref "contributing.md" >}}) (and the more in-depth [Detailed Contribution Guide]({{<relref "detailed_contribution_guide/_index.md" >}})) for general guidance on how we work, making bug reports, dealing with security issues, and contributing code. |
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| ## Governance |
| |
| OpenTitan is stewarded by lowRISC CIC, a not-for-profit company that uses collaborative engineering to develop and maintain open source silicon designs and tools for the long term. |
| As a lowRISC CIC Chartered Project, OpenTitan governance is handled via lowRISC's default Technical Charter. |
| |
| As described in full detail in the [OpenTitan Technical Charter](https://static.opentitan.org/technical-charter.pdf), our governance structure consists of: |
| * The Project Director, Dominic Rizzo, who is a representative of the lowRISC CIC's Board of Directors within the Steering Committee. |
| * The Steering Committee, responsible for project oversight and agreeing the technical roadmap. |
| * The [Technical Committee]({{< relref "technical_committee" >}}), responsible for technical decision making required to implement the technical roadmap. |
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| ## Initiating new development |
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| The [OpenTitan RFC process]({{< relref "rfc_process" >}}) guides developers on how to initiate new development within the program. |
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| ## Committers |
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| Committers are individuals with repository write access. |
| Everyone is able and encouraged to contribute and to help with code review, but committers are responsible for the final approval and merge of contributions. |
| See the [Committers]({{< relref "committers.md" >}}) definition and role description for more information. |
