Does anyone here know of a SDK that I can get my hands on (I'm an MIT PhD) that would allow me to run code directly on the hardware? (I'm hoping to use a mixture of C and direct assembly.) Due to the nature of my research, I need a secure platform, like the smart-card chips.

I'm asking this on HN because I've ran out of places to try. Big companies like Atmel don't want to work with me because I do research, or maybe I wasn't very good at pitching my project.

If you want more information about my project -- I'm researching the design of a secure chip resembling the TPM in that it works in conjunction with an untrusted computer. My design is better than the TPM in that it supports arbitrary computation on the chip, and doesn't require a secure binding to the computer. My design is better than existing smart-cards (e.g. JavaCard, MultOS) because it can run untrusted code, and the code doesn't have to be embedded in the chip when it's issued.

My first paper on the topic: http://people.csail.mit.edu/devadas/pubs/cardis08tem.pdf

OSS code (MIT license): http://rubyforge.org/projects/tem

Thank you so much for reading!