----- Forwarded message from Wolfgang Spraul <wolfg...@sharism.cc> -----
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 05:34:17 +0000 From: Wolfgang Spraul <wolfg...@sharism.cc> To: discuss...@lists.en.qi-hardware.com Subject: How to Blow $100 Million User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Hi, read a nice editorial about the challenges of IC design and manufacturing, something we are gearing up to with Milkymist http://www.mdronline.com/editorial/edit24_34.html For those who don't know - Milkymist [1] is a new, free, GPL licensed SoC architecture. It is built around an openly licensed [2] Mico32 processing core, which gives us a headstart in the instruction set design and toolchain support. The Mico32 part makes up about 25% of the entire Milkymist SoC design (just counting lines of code [3]), so I think it's fair to call the entire work a 'Milkymist SoC architecture'. It would be great if Mico32 would see more development in the openly licensed part (there are some closed parts too AFAIK), but right now it seems rather static (it was developed in 2006), so the Milkymist part will probably grow in percentage overall, especially if someone can start working on the ambitious roadmap items http://www.milkymist.org/wiki/index.php?title=Roadmap The first hardware product to be tailor-made around Milkymist is the Milkymist One VJ station [4]. Others are in the pipeline, such as the Xué digital camera [5], and Werner is even thinking about a Milkymist NanoNote already... Quoting from the editorial " ... Our rule of thumb is that a leading-edge fabless chip company requires about $100 million to survive ... Startups today, unlike those of yesteryear, are taking on massive system-on-a-chip development projects. These aren't "simple" microprocessors, DSPs, video controllers, interface chips, or other easily understood single-function chips; they're complex and heavily integrated, with hundreds of millions of transistors fabricated in 40nm or better technology. ... One or two spins of the silicon should be factored in, including tapeout fees, manufacturing charges, testing, and more. Nothing this complex is designed from scratch, so large chunks of the design will need to be licensed from third-party IP vendors. ... We figure two years from first serious design effort to working silicon is typical. That's two years of toil, expense, risk, and revision before the product sees the light of day. ... But that's only half the expense. The other half comes in the waiting. ... " I found the editorial very inspiring. Gives you the famous 'Bring them on' feeling to ignore reality and just be happy about yourself :-) We don't have 100 million USD, and while I wouldn't mind talking with someone to invest, I don't think it will happen and I don't actively spend time on it. We work with a few 10k USD instead, our savings. Attempts at ASIC manufacturing are postponed until we get everything rolling in FPGA land. And maybe the first steps into ASIC will be the 'simple' microprocessors the article is talking about, for example if we find something where we can replace an expensive or interesting proprietary IC that implements some isolated function. Our ICs, even Milkymist, also will not have 'hundreds of millions of transistors', and while the Spartan-6 FPGA is manufactured in a 45nm process, and the upcoming Spartan-7 (give it at least another 2 years) will be manufactured in a 28nm process, our own steps into ASIC will more likely start with 500nm or larger processes. In general we cannot approach Milkymist in the same aggressive way someone with 100 million USD on hand would, but the path is the same, only we walk slower. The key will be to innovate on freedoms, not to fall for proprietary shortcuts, not to license 'large chunks of the design from third-party IP vendors'. Roll Over ARM, and tell Intel, MIPS and all the others the news. :-) Wolfgang [1] http://www.milkymist.org [2] http://github.com/lekernel/milkymist/blob/master/LICENSE.LATTICE [3] http://github.com/lekernel/milkymist/ [4] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Milkymist_One [5] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Xue _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): discuss...@lists.en.qi-hardware.com Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion ----- End forwarded message -----
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