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First LEON Silicon Tested Successfully
uglomera writes: "LEON, the open-source CPU developed for the European Space Agency, has been successfully manufactured and tested by Atmel on an Atmel ATC35. Gaisler Research, whose CEO Jiri Gaisler wrote the VHDL model of LEON, also offers a real time kernel, simulator, a cross-compiler, etc. for this SPARC-family processor designed for space applications. Check it out." You can find more good information on the LEON processor on the Gaisler site, including diagrams and further reading. Open Source hardware running Free software -- wheee!
NASA, in the USia, spends literally millions of dollars designing the space shuttle's computing system from the ground up. Their in-house coders pour over each microchip and line of code hundereds of times looking for even the smallest bug. This superior attention to detail is not possible using the limited resources of the open-source method. It is also why NASA can succeed in safe, reliable space flight time, and time again, while other space programs are struggling. Open source has it's advantages, but when 100% reliability is necessary, it may not be the best option.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
More stuff like this can be found here: opencores
I doubt they plan to send this widget up without a full seperate functionality audit, which they can do for an open source processor, but it might be hard to convince say Intel to let them pore over the VHDL for the celeron or whatever.
Just because it's open source doesn't mean they aren't going to put it through the same rigorous tests that they would put a commercial processor through.
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Open source hardware seems a bit odd. The nice thing is, yes, we can have the specs to make apps really fast. Instead of, for example, having to wait for Intel to decide to contribute to gcc, kernelsm or (finally) release their in-house (Linux) compiler. So a more open spec on the processor would allow people to actually get things right. I guess the question that sits on my mind is what is truly more valuable, a truly wide open spec or a more open design so anyone can manufacture one.
I guess my feelings are known because I believe that hardware's design should not be completely open. Let a manufacturer keep it all to themselves. However, when you buy the processor you should have the _complete_ spec available. (which is way different than Intel does now)
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My opinions do not represent those of my employer of course.
I was speaking to a co-worker the other day about Sun's UltraSPARC III processor and he was telling me about CPU manufacturing in general.
To actually create a fabrication facility to make CPUs, it takes about 20 billion dollars. $20,000,000,000 dollars. That's more than most companies can afford. Even Intel couldn't make very many new fabrication plants.
If a company can't afford to create their own plant, they have to schedule time at a fabrication facility. This is basically a window (say 48 or 72 hours) where the facility will crank out as many chips as possible. If they miss the window for some reason, they have to re-schedule and it can be months until there is another open time slot.
What I'm getting at is designing Open CPUs is a great idea. It allows developers to really get inside of the hardware and optimize the hell out of applications, which is a good thing. However, the actual cost to make these CPUs is staggering, and unless a big company put up some big bucks, I don't see it happening in the near future.
My co-worker also mentioned how low cost almost everything else is. Video cards, NICs, sound cards and the like. Wouldn't it be better to focus on products like these since they would work with all hardware (how about a video card that worked on Sun and x86 machines?)? With Moore's Law getting us faster and faster CPU speeds, perhaps it's time to make the peripherals first, and focus on a CPU once we have found sucess with smaller projects.
If I recall, the US space shuttle runs on something like a dozen underclocked i286's, each processor with something like 5 way redundancy. Each processor in a set of five will perform the same calculations. The solution presented by the majority of processors is deemed to be failsafe. The 80286 was chosen because it is simplistic, and it's reliability has been proven through years and years of experience in the field. In addition, Intel has spent millions on development and testing of this processor to ensure it is 100% reliable.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
negative spin.
LEON
The LEON model also exists in a fault-tolerant
version, capable of detecting and correcting
single-event upset (SEU) errors in any register
or RAM element. This is done completely in
hardware without any software intervention.
The area overhead for the fault-tolerance
functions is approximately 30% while the timing
penalty is around 5%. The fault-tolerant features
makes it possible to use LEON in the severe
space environment without having to develop specific SEU-hardened cell libraries. The LEON
fault-tolerant VHDL model can under some conditions be licensed from ESA -
Ethics II Axiom 2. "Man thinks." B. Spinoza
It sounds like you do no believe that the brits do anything other than run down to the local electronics shop, slap a bunch of stuff together and fire it off into space. I do not deny that space flight is dangerous, but the thought that a single component failure producing catastrophic results when talking about computer equipment is not bothering to think.
If they are doing anything like what NASA has done in the past, then there is not one, but three computers for each group of tasks. These three computers vote, if one is consistantly out of sync with the others it gets shut down.
I don't think that NASA has cornered the market on testing systems. As the public has even seen, Intel, and Motorola are not perfect. What the public does not tend to see are the less well known bugs which have existed and gone on with less public fanfare. The one I struggled with the most was a bug in the 386 chip which made it useless for network based semephors.
Equating Open source with bug ridden and unreliable is to look upon what is currently available with closed eyes.
In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
Thousands of excellent designers work together from tens of nations, and they start mixing feet with meters again... Yikes!
Now where did I leave my babelfish...
Sofar.
The availability of an inexpensive, radiation tolerant CPU is a big win for space researchers. Right now there are darn few radiation-tolerant parts available for use in space applications due to decreased demand from the military. The International Space Station is using Intel 386s for embedded CPUs, as they are simple enough to be relatively rad-hard. More modern CPUs, such as in the laptops used on the ISS and Shuttle have about one lockup/day due to radiation.
The design requirements for software controlled systems in space are so stringent that to do anything sophisticated requires incredible redundancy, cross checks among the systems, and increased design complexity, all of which significantly drives up design costs (and causes all kinds of debugging problems). Tell me three times is not enough, you have to tell three controllers three times, three different ways and then they need to cross check. This could be a big step forward for software geeks in space.
I saw a number of projects on the net where people try to build a pure hardware codec using FPGA. It seems that the better approach is to build a CPU-based, hardware-assisted codec.
Here is a great opportunity to free music from MP3 license payments. If somebody creates an open-source reference hardware/firmware implementation, Far-East companies will start making cheap portable players/recorders in no time.
As for the development costs: many FPGA vendors provide their software for free or for a small price, because they make money on their chips. The only problem is a good Verilog/VHDL simulator. FPGAs themselves are pricey, but there are some one time programmable devices (Atmel, Quicklogic) that cost under 50USD.
$20 billion? Hell, an aircraft carrier only costs about $3 billion. IIRC the newest Intel fab cost about $2 billion.
Best Slashdot Co
"Their in-house coders pour over each microchip and line of code hundereds of times looking for even the smallest bug. This superior attention to detail is not possible using the limited resources of the open-source method."
Sure it is, here's how: Use exactly the process NASA uses know and that you are apparently comfortable with. Then ADD (not replace) more programmers by making the source available via FTP.
Adding openness to an existing project loses nothing. Yes, shifting the burden of quality OFF of some process ONTO openness may not always be a good idea (not in one go, anyway). But adding more checks doesn't lower quality.
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324006
``Leon the pig farmer'' boards the shuttle? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Open Source doesn't mean it was developed by the masses. It just means it's licensed under an open-source license. It means that if others want the design, they can have it, and use it.
You can bet that Nasa usest he same quality controls on these circuits as with any other.. they just release it to the public.
Well, we've got Open Source hardware in the news. I figure with all the theorizations, I'd toss in my two cents on what this will entail.
THE BAD:
1) Expect to see some of the cultic behavior we've seen that has affected Linux's reputation - people jumping on every note on LEON and related technolog as the Ultimate Thing to Save Us from Microsoft. Expect this behavior to be noted by non-OS manufacturers and used against OS hardware.
2) Expect serious reality cramps when people discover just how much fabricating chips cost. Expect conspiracy theories to emerge.
3) This is a first step, and there's a lot further to go.
THE GOOD:
1) OS processors are at least feasible. Let's face it - this is just cool.
2) The genie is out of the bottle - the idea is there. It will spread.
3) Intel has been made a fool of by AMD. Transmeta (associated with Linus Torvalds fortunately) has their new chips. Now we've got this. People are starting to rethink chips, processors, etc.
Do I think a revolution just started? No, though I expect some people will play it up as such. There may be a revolution, but it won't happen immediately.
However, a good idea is out there and its physically manifested. I expect good things to come of it - just not right away.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
; there's no reason not to trust open source developers; they're much better than the money-hungry programmers hired by coprporations.
;-)
So why are "money hungry" programmers any less driven than freebie bedroom programmers?
They are probably more motivated on occasion (money, moolah, ca$h), and may actually have achieved a higher degree of academic excellence to get their high-paying jobs in the first place.
In saying that, I have been guilty of knocking out the odd Friday-afternoon bit of code!
(this is my first thing i wrote for slashdot!)
Congratulations! With a user number like that you must have been lurking for a considerable period of time. Expect the Grammer Nazi at you for that spelling anytime soon
For those interested, it was the testing instrument of the lens which failed, so the lens was polished correctly according to the specifications of the instrument. So one could say that the testing procedure was flawed, and not the quality of the testing itself. I guess this is a difference, that when you do something "in-house", it's difficult to get fundamental criticism, i.e. out-of-the-box criticism. In open source contexts, you almost always have someone pointing out fundamental flaws, because they are not afraid of criticizing "the boss".
If I was in some extremely hazardous environment, and relied on a computer to keep me intact, I'd go for one that'll do the job, whatever speed it ran at.
If you'd prefer the flat-out MIPS rating, go for it. Your choice. Just don't go into space, the Irish Sea, anywhere that's glowing, or within a few hundred miles of any EMP stuff. You'll be just fine. Bored witless, but fine.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...the compiler is gnu and the money isn't there since the spec is open anyway.
Not so. There's plenty of money in porting gcc, the linux kernel, &c. to different architectures. Cygnus Solutions does just that and makes money at it; my company, MontaVista Software, has been responsible for getting Linux to run on several boards -- and free software or no, there are companies who are more than happy to pay us to do it.
Presumably this works for hardware too.