In today's age of digital technology, ethical concerns regarding computing systems are increasing. While the focus of such concerns currently is on requirements for software, this article spotlights the hardware domain, specifically microchips. For example, the opaqueness of modern microchips raises security issues, as malicious actors can manipulate them, jeopardizing system integrity. As a consequence, governments invest substantially to facilitate a secure microchip supply chain. To combat the opaqueness of hardware, this article introduces the concept of Explainable Hardware (XHW). Inspired by and building on previous work on Explainable AI (XAI) and explainable software systems, we develop a framework for achieving XHW comprising relevant stakeholders, requirements they might have concerning hardware, and possible explainability approaches to meet these requirements. Through an exploratory survey among 18 hardware experts, we showcase applications of the framework and discover potential research gaps. Our work lays the foundation for future work and structured debates on XHW.

翻译：在当今数字技术时代，关于计算系统的伦理关切日益增多。尽管此类关注目前聚焦于软件需求，但本文着眼硬件领域，特别是微芯片。例如，现代微芯片的不透明性引发了安全问题，恶意行为者可能对其进行操纵，从而危及系统完整性。为此，各国政府大力投资以保障微芯片供应链安全。为应对硬件的不透明性，本文提出了可解释硬件（XHW）的概念。受先前关于可解释人工智能（XAI）及可解释软件系统研究的启发与支撑，我们构建了实现XHW的框架，该框架涵盖相关利益者、他们对硬件的潜在需求，以及满足这些需求的可行可解释性方法。通过一项面向18位硬件专家的探索性调查，我们展示了该框架的应用场景，并发现了潜在的研究空白。本研究为未来工作及关于XHW的结构化讨论奠定了基础。