The Sunburst project was created to improve the security of embedded devices by increasing the adoption of secure hardware. The project is a collaboration between lowRISC CIC, Digital Security by Design / UK Research and Innovation, and NewAE Technology (a wholly owned subsidiary of lowRISC). The CHERIoT technology was initially specified by Microsoft based on the CHERI work done at the University of Cambridge and SRI International.

As part of this project 100 Sonata development boards – featuring capability-enhanced processors based on the CHERIoT technology – have been funded by DSbD/UKRI and are available to engineers to test CHERI security capabilities.