Open-source silicon chips

We have all heard that there is ‘Intel inside’, but what is inside Intel? Almost all integrated circuits today are literally black boxes. They may contain unwanted or malicious features and, most importantly, they do not encourage reuse, nor do they allow it. The two main causes of such secrecy are: 1. standard design tools explicitly forbid the publication of any output, and 2. most foundries disallow disclosing technology details. Designers moreover face additional problems: The licence cost of standard design tools is unaffordable for most SMEs (unless questionable discount policies are applied), and lock-in threats arise at many levels, from IP blocks to foundry details to file formats. Yet exceptional progress has been made in recent years: Hundreds of silicon chips have been designed using free and open-source tools, and three foundries have made details of their processes public: The doors to free silicon are open! Hence how is politics reacting? What are the next steps to be taken? What are the opportunities for users, society and companies?