-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 11:15:19PM +0100, jdd wrote: > Le 22/01/2016 17:34, Alberto Salvia Novella a écrit : > >libre hardware. > that's far from new > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html > > I remember efforts done to have free cpu, but I don't think > significant result have been achieved
There are actuall quite a few (available or soonish available) free CPUs. Starting from the lower end: * Parallax Propeller [1], [2] Fast-ish, risc-y, 32 bit 8 core microcontroller. Design (incl VHDL) is under GPLV3 (no less!). You can really buy silicon for that! Eight (take or give) dollars and one is yours. * OpenRISC [3] 32 bit (these days 64 bit). LGPL. There are a few FPGA based implementations and some specialist "real silicon" implementations, AFAIK one on board of ISS. No idea whether one can buy "real silicon" (at least as mere mortal). * RISC-V [4] To me, this is the most exciting of the pack. Modern 64 bit design, BSD license, actually a meta-design. There are real "biggies" behind that, David Patterson (of Hennessy and Patterson fame). There is an effort underway [5] to touch "real silicon", surrounded by a low cost devel board. They are pretty advanced on that and backed by people who seem to know their stuff, like Robert Mullins of Raspberry Pi fame or Bunnie Huang (need I introduce this one?). If you follow the links you'll quickly realize that this list is far from exhaustive. I didn't name the MIPSen and SPARCsen gone or donated into public domain. Ask and you shall be given :-) [1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller> [2] <https://www.parallax.com/microcontrollers/propeller> [3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenRISC> [4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V> [5] <http://www.lowrisc.org/> regards - -- tomás -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlajSXQACgkQBcgs9XrR2kYt2gCeLDv3UaG6RlkunDbE3M2qiPb5 fI8AnimNgxV6EWJoMMnZE3N4Ts6lomay =DgTt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----