CERN has released colibri, an open-source VHDL library containing over 100 reusable FPGA components designed for vendor-independent gateware development. Developed over four years to improve portability and standardization across projects, the library emphasizes open-source principles, vendor independence, and rigorous verification through testbenches and formal methods.
A custom 32-bit CPU encrypted at gate-level with anti-tamper and anti-debug protections went unsolved for a year by humans and multiple LLMs, until GPT-6 solved it in 20-30 minutes using side-channel cryptanalysis to exploit weak encryption protecting the CPU state. The challenge featured a virtual architecture with 16 general-purpose registers, bit-addressable memory, and obfuscated VHDL synthesis.