Just a quick update, I know I haven't moved on this project by much in a while.

Luckily, I've stocked up on several CH55x parts, and I've done a LOT of soldering practice thanks to my effort on Oakton Rocketry's payload (maybe will document that on hackaday one day). I've also got a cheap CNC machine which I successfully used to mill a proof-of-concept PCB. I also have a few development boards sitting around, so I'm all set for quarantine!

Hopefully once my school commitment decreases, I'll be able to spend more time on this project. I look forward to making some changes to the PCB design and starting to actually write some code for this. I've been reading up documentation for the SDCC compiler, it has a nice section that helped me understand the 8051 architecture.

Also, special thanks to Aaron Christophel, who has already done a great deal of work as far as making the ch55x easier to develop for (including an android app that lets you flash your ch55x device). He gave me a few tips and pointers after I asked on his YouTube video where he describes his experiences working with the CH55x MCU's.

My next steps are as follows (not really in any particular order, and these are very much subject to change. I'm just thinking aloud)

- take a dev board and try to run some encryption tasks on it. uECC is an excellent library that I plan on using for this. If crypto tasks take way too long (more than say, 10 seconds), it may be best to use a more powerful CH55x device or consider some alternatives. 

- Learn how to implement a USB device on the ch55x. There is plenty of sample code, but I want to re-implement an HID device meant for U2F. I already studied up some of the USB protocol, but I've got some ways to go. Ideally, it'll be capable of talking U2F to some minimal degree.

- Actually write code for the U2F crypto tasks....

- and integrate it with USB. At this point, I should have a functioning U2F device!

- Re-do the PCB and make some prototypes!