Christophe Biquard 2026 candidate
OpenHW and Embedded SW Director
Nominee for Contributing Member representative
Strategic Member, OpenHW Foundation
email: christophe.biquard at thalesgroup.com
Vision
In 2025, OpenHW Group joined the Eclipse Foundation with the objective of advancing RISC-V processor cores as open source solutions. The open hardware movement aligns with the principles of open source software: promote the best in class RISC-V core (as RTL files), share those digital asset by open collaboration between member of the community so industrial products (processor) can focus on their differentiator. OpenHW is a new pilar of the Eclipse digital sovereign ecosystem, as Open Source RISC-V Core are immune to both tariff and export control regulations.
New collaboration between working groups
The inclusion of OpenHW Group’s activities within the Eclipse Foundation expands naturally the possible collaborations between Working Groups. With the Eclipse Foundation’s involvement in initiatives such as the EU Project Rigoletto, we anticipate a full open source SDV Stack (Software Defined Vehicle) — ranging from hardware to application-level solutions. Key components of this stack includes RISC-V Cores, real-time operating systems (e.g., ThreadX) and middleware for inter-software communication (e.g., Zenoh).
With the recent integration of Hardware focus activities in Eclipse, we can identify new areas to collaborate between Working Groups to globally expand the reach of Eclipse Foundation. Thales is therefore submitting its candidacy in the upcoming Contributing Member election, with myself as the designated representative.
About the candidate
Christophe, a member of the Steering Commitee at the Eclipse OpenHW Group, leads Thales initiatives at the CTO level for the adoption of RISC-V technology, in all Thales verticals. CVA6 is born in Open Source, Thales being now the main contributor, and sees a growing high quality contributions notably from academic partners. Looking ahead, we plan to extend this community through industry partnership (both SME and semi-con big players), and with Eclipse Foundation Working Groups.
Christophe also oversees Embedded Software initiatives at Thales, where a model-based approach is widely deployed, build on Eclipse EMF Technology Stack. Zooming out, Thales is the leading contributor to Capella Modeling tool, and to several foundational technologies widely adopted in the Eclipse EMF ecosystem, including Kit Alpha, Sirius SDL, and EMF Diff-Merge. We plan to extend our EMF stack to modern IDEs in the near future. We plan to extend our EMF stack to modern IDEs (VSCode Based) in the near future. Beyond modeling tools, the Embedded Software team at Thales remains proactive in exploring emerging technologies: Hardware platform and components, Operating System, network and local communication, …
Christophe is also a member of Software Republic (Startup Pillar), a French open innovation partnership with organizations such as Renault, ATOS, and Dassault Systèmes. Through this consortium, we actively engage with disruptive startups to drive innovation in our products.
Should Christophe be elected, he will dedicate some of his time to expand the global reach of the Eclipse Foundation and strengthen the OpenHW Group with external partners cooperation.