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OpenCores.org ARM Clone Removed From Web
An Anonymous Coward writes: ""A clone of the ARM7 32-bit RISC processor core, previously available free for download from the Internet, has been taken down or hidden" pending discussions between the core's designer and a Chinese representative of ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England)."
Remember, this is a reverse-engineered "clone in the form of a synthesizable Verilog language description."
Try here.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Having a synthesizable core does NOT mean that you can just drop it into any modern design. The deliverables for a commercially usable core are significant. Typically you need the following:
* Verilog code.
* TWO sets of timing constraints in Synopsys SDC format - one for synthesis, the other for static timing analysis and back-end physical design (i.e. defined clocks, high fanout nets like resets/selects, false/multicycle paths, case analysis statements for setting fastest propagation mode through the design).
* Synthesis scripts, which have specific mappings to the standard-cell libraries of the particular process (except if implemented in an FPGA).
* SRAM macro definitions and how they plug into the Verilog code (again, highly library/process specific and not relevant for an FPGA, assuming you can find enough on-board FPGA SRAM to equal the caches necessary for the ARM7)
* All JTAG-related files, including BSDL and tap controller specs.
* Scan and functional test vectors for Verilog VCS or NC-Verilog to show the core works.
I'm sure I've missed a couple of things, but you get all of that, PLUS implementation support from ARM engineers. Mere Verilog code is not going to threaten ARM, and the expense that a company would go to in supporting its own core implementation wouldn't justify the cost in development time. Especially when there are other competitors ready to do it faster and quicker.
So, IMO, I say SCREW ARM. Arrogant bastards who don't want people to learn about their own cores. Heck, big EDA companies give away their software to universities for education but that can't be used for commercial purposes (which was a big advantage in me getting a job in teh industry). Why can't ARM get their act together and do the same? It will only help to have engineers out of school who know their stuff.
I must say that ARM are a pretty cool company not the usual nasty corporate bully that Slashdot likes to portray, it's nice to think a bit of the Acorn lives on in nearly every mobile phone and PDA's etc.
However... remember ARM are purely an IP company they don't manufacture stuff like Intel so IP is their sole source of income, if you remove that, they die, I don't blame them for defending it, whether is was 'reverse-engineered' or produced from original designs is beside the point... it implements the ARM instruction set and therefore infringes upon ARM's patents.
Of course people here will probably bleat on about how any company could have the audacity to creative new products and patent stuff, but they make good products and spent a lot of cash producing those designs, revenue is needed in order to produce better products, like X-Scale for example, Intel have a ARM architecture license due to numerous entangled lawsuits and cross licensing.
I don't think ARM has much to worry about anyway, if a fab actually started producing cores on this design then ARM en masse then they could sue the hell out of them or the companies that use them in final products, ARM designs permeate many chips and designs out here so gaining access to a legitimate design is not a monumental task, but fabbing millions of chips illegitimately is not easy to get away with since people would definitely notice.
> Reverse engineering protects OpenCores.org from
> being accused of corporate espionage, by proving
> that they legally obtained the information
> necessary to copy the core, but their posting of
> patented information to their website is what is
> being argued against.
There are NO rules against posting patented information. In fact, patenting REQUIRES full disclosure. Patents are NOT copyrights!
> Reverse engineering is nothing more than a
> legitimate way for engineers to steal the
> intellectual property of competitors and gain an
> unfair business advantage.
Using "legitimate" and "steal" in the same sentence just goes to prove that you have not understood the point of reverse engineerin, or
of patents for that matter.
You don't need to prevent reverse engineering if you are protected by a patent. A patent prohibits competitors from creating the same product, even if they reverse engineer it (which should not be necessary anyway, since the information is in the patent application anyway).
> ARM has invested millions of dollars and
> countless hours into developing their processor
> core, and they are completely justified in
> defending what is rightfully theirs against so-
> called "reverse engineering" patent theft.
Patents are not made to reward investment, but to reward products. It doesn't matter if you spent a billion on finding the result or it came to you in a dream.
> I'm pretty sure that without too much effort, I
> could figure out how that was made without
> looking at any of it's inventors design specs.
> Do I legally have a right to sell my own
> "reverse engineered" version of someone elses
> invention? I should think not!
And you would be right. That would be infringing on their patent. Now, if you found a radically different way to fry bacon in a microwave (more elaborate than putting it on paper tissue while cooking, which has lots of prior art), then you would not infrige on the patent, and would maybe even be eligable for your own patent.
/RS
The idea that a verilog description can infringe a patent is very problematic. Patents are supposed to teach an invention, but collect roalties on (or block) implementations. A verilog description is nothing more than a very detailed teaching of how to practice the art described in the patent. If the patent is valid (and you don't have any other objections to patent law in general) then there is no legal problem blocking someone from making a chip based on the verilog. But a patent holder has absolutely no right to block someone from teaching, in great detail, how to practice the art described in the patent (which after all was what the inventor was supposed to do when the patent was filed in the first place). Unless there is some trade secret misappropriation going on here, or unless ARM is claiming a copyright on their architecture that blocks any implementation of it, ARM appears to have no legal basis for what they are doing. As for the copyright theory, good luck getting that to stand in the US (see Lotus v. Borland).
Be careful how you interpret this stuff; the headlines are much more inflammatory than the situation warrants.
If you go through to the original EE Times article, you'll discover that the nnARM implementation was radically incomplete: no interrupt handling, no virtual memory, no coprocessor instructions, no THUMB support. For what the guy in question was doing, that's fine; he can be perfectly comfortable building a GPS receiver w/o any of that -- but no large-scale embedded system builder would be interested in this chip. (A cell phone manufacturer would need to qualify any such chip set...no way. Linux and WinCE won't run on it. QNX won't run on it. Although I suppose ucLinux might run on it, that would require a full port to a new instruction set width, and that would cost much more than anyone would save by doing it.)
That puts quite a different light on this than the articles in the Reg implied. A chip like this poses no threat to ARM's licensing revenues. What it does do is confuse people about what an ARM core can do. In my opinion, ARM has a legitimate beef about that.