Slashdot Mirror
Help Build the World's First Community-Funded CPU ASIC
An anonymous reader writes "The 32-bit OpenRISC CPU has been available for many FPGAs and was turned into a commercial ASIC in 2003. Now, the OpenCores community is asking for donations to create a new ASIC with the OpenRISC CPU, ethernet, PCI, UART, USB and other peripherals. The goal is to be able to sell these ASICs at a low price to anyone who wants to build a cheap embedded system built completely on open source. The OpenRISC currently runs on Linux 2.6.37 and has ports of gcc 4.5.1 among other things."
This is a milestone in open source history. No more complaining about undocumented behaviour that causes drivers to crash. It's just to download the RTL code and see for yourself what is going on. If this catches on, the chances of building truly open systems greatly improves. Go OpenCores!
http://www.opensparc.net/
How else could I be sure that the chips they sell are compiled from the published source?
Pretty sure Linux runs on a CPU, rather than the other way around.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Why can't the opensource community build a more up to date one that is 64-bit with built in GPU. That would be nice for tablets
http://saveie6.com/
GNU electric is used to design ASICs. You need a good set of standard cells and a synthesis tool. Then you write the logic in VHDL or verilog.
I applaud the effort, and I hope it succeeds. The community ought to have its own hardware.
But I hope the prices are a little less than those of OpenMoko and friends (BeagleBoard, FreeRunner, etc.) have been.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
That's racist. Please use the term "negroes" or "colored brothers".
This is stupid.
I am a big proponent of open-source software. I like the idea of being able to build my own versions of software, fixing bugs and adding features. I use it as a key component of my business. It is great. Moreover, most of the code that me or my employees write is or likely one day will be open source.
However...open hardware is a fundamentally different thing. No one has chip fabs in their basement. So someone will have to pay big money to make the masks and tape-out and test the hardware. Unless some major vendor picks up the design and mass produces it lots of 100s of thousands, the price per CPU is going to be stupidly more expensive than an off-the-shelf CPU/motherboard or embedded system. And, even then, you are probably buying an overpriced, underpowered CPU just because it is "free."
This is Stallmanism as its worst--"freedom" for freedom's sake without regard to functionality or practicality. Stuff like this casts a shadow of crazy.
"Ho;;a" is a Klingon racial epithet? Good to know, I guess...
Those too are racist. Please instead use "pigmentally runaway" or "fried chickenum watermelonus".
What is the current state of Open Source ASIC Synthesis and Layout tools? It does nobody any good to have an open RTL core if you need to pay the Synopsys tax (on top of the foundry NRE) to implement it.
Frankly, I'd love to buy one of those SPARC T2 chips, and since their design is already released under the GPL, it would be great to have an initiative to actually build them, so we can put them in desktops and laptops. Right now, they're tucked away in Oracle / Fujitsu (super expensive!) server-only land.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
This is a nice idea, but there are a few serious problems with it:
1. If this doesn't catch on and people want it to continue, this could be a significant ongoing cost for running this project above and beyond allocating what people might think are one-time NRE charges. None of this appears to be detailed enough on that site so I'm not sure how far they've thought through this. Who are the target vendors, and have they tendered bids? Costs vary greatly, and I'm not at all ready to throw money when there appears not to be an "open source" plan with sufficient detail to make this real, nor with open listing of the credentials of the individuals involved. If you're gathering up to $250k for a project and you want my money, I had damned well better know that you're able to execute and that you have a real plan and definitely not just an FAQ.
2. How did they define the product? Is it based on market needs? If so, what markets and where is the information on said markets? If it's for hobbyists, I get that, but did anyone do even a rudimentary survey to say how many timers or UARTs might be necessary, whether they should embed an MMU so you can run a more advanced OS, or what the max CPU clock speed should be? If *I* am going to put my money in it, then why not ask *me* what I want? And yeah, I know I can contribute, but how have all of those contributions been managed, organized and synthesized into what is being built AND make it sufficiently relevant for enough time that this would be worth doing before technology moves on? I don't see a single place for that around their site.
3. Frankly, why bother when there are many other vendors such as Microchip who offer 32-bit micros with fully-documented architectures and better capabilities that you can run Linux on? I know, I know, this is what open source is about, but we're not just talking about someone's spare time on a machine they do other things with; this is a real product with real implications. I seriously don't buy how they're going to change the industry since the successful players in the industry guarantee supply to their customers.
I know I'm going to get flamed and down-voted for this post, but the open source hardware world is much tougher than the software world, and ASIC designs are steadily dropping because ASSPs are taking their place. I think people's efforts need to be focused on software, and this is coming from a guy who's been on Slashdot more than a decade with a hardware background (and hence my name) and has switched to the software and systems world...
You can do this in your basement with an FPGA on a slower scale, and i am sure that if enough orders were batched we could get a chip fab in some other country to make a 'smallish run' at a more reasonable cost than your estimate.. ( no, not 'cheap' but i don't think 100's of thousands either )
And 'free', or 'low cost' isn't the only selling point here, to me at least. 'Fully documented' and 'non-proprietary' is nothing to sneeze at.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Speaking of grassroots chip design, what is happening with HDCaml these days? I thought the idea was pretty neat when I first heard of it (a hardware design language that is nicer to work with than VHDL and Verilog!), but is anybody actually working with or on it? Or any other improvements on the established languages?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Too bad that, because it's an ASIC, all you can do is LOOK at that source code then try to design your code around the problem.
I'm down with open source, but this seems fantastically stupid to me. I can buy a pretty powerful CPU from a host of manufacturers at some very good prices - less than the $25 donation they request on their page, in fact.
We want to provide an alternative to the profit-hunting semiconductor giants who only provide "cost efficient prices" to large multi-national companies...
This is bullshit. This is about an agenda, not about the economic reality of "competing."
I work for a company that produces outsourcing for ASIC supply chain. Assuming a 130nm process, we are talking about $750K for masks and the like and $250k for Non-recurring engineering. Manufacturing run requirements would be a half lot at 8 inch- 12 wafers at probably 100-150 units per wafer MINIMUM.So expect a production run of at least a thousand.
I don't think this project can be done on commercial terms.
While poking around a couple of weeks ago, I found a couple of HDL sources for MIPS R3000 cores. Would these run into licensing issues? They could be adapted to something similar, or perhaps other uses with the addition of on chip I/O and perhaps a vector unit, IMHO.
Why would anyone think this is a viable idea for the open source community ?
Maybe if someone like AMD got behind it ?
Without a long term commitment from a reliable manufacturer to supply these at a competitive rate for 5+ years there is a large risk that people investing in designs using this chip will be left high and dry. They would be far better to look at some of the ARM derivatives where at least you are not locked into a boutique supplier. The only thing that could make this a useful idea would be the availability of FPGA chips at the same price point - not holding my breath there.
Im >.
thank you, people.
Read radical news here
No GPIO's??? Come on.
(drum rolls plz) Help offset the' balance of power' for good! Help make the Open-Source-RISC-Processor possible. Grab'em by the hardware and the rest will unavoidably follow - Choose http://OpenCores.org/donation ...This is all very appropriate for May-day :) It May be the cheapest (not only in terms of $s) 'Game-Changing" stunt around for one to support, so making a donation May just yet prove to be the best investment in history ('price/performance' wise) for "The Future of Our Children", leading to the fall of the whole corrupt Intellectual-Property/Corporate/Banking/Media/State/Gov/Army/You/AndYourFamily/ThatRightMeTo/WereAllInIt system. :).
Then again, it May not, but I think its worth a shot. So May May-day b the day the Slashdot Effect will make this project save us from our own greedy nature
(drummer May rest now)
May d 4s b wiz u!
I wrote my thesis on partly the OR32 ISA way back in 2002-2003.
The architecture is still as mildly broken as it was then.
The OR1200 implementation is still as badly broken as then.
For the OR32 ISA to ever become something useful the ISA needs to be updated and a non retarded implementation of the ISA needs to be done.
To just create a new SoC is just prolonging the major pain that the OR1200 is.
Any good ASIC/FPGA engineer can create an half useful SoC with the OR community IP blocks.
To create a new _useful_ implementation of the OR32 ISA, needs a team, or atleast someone with brains.
This is still not happening.
If you want a useful CPU with a normal AMBA interface, go for the brilliant implementation of the Sparc instead (Leon series IP blocks).
A little late to mod something "flamebait" when others have already shown to have found value in the conversation. Enjoy your days metamodding...
I mean, seriously.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I mean, sure, we have MIPS and ARM that are close to open and free (and some others), and SPARC is almost close to open and free. And there seems to be some sort of camp that thinks x86 is teh language of teh gods.
But what's wrong with a cpu design that is open from the bottom up?
(I mean, I guess it's open, they mention the GPL all over, but I have to log in to look at the design. I should go register and log in, if I can, to see if the design is worthwhile. I note they talk about the harvard split extending to the MMU and cache systems, which ought to be a good thing, but I don't notice such care taken towards the stack, which is something I'd like to see, but, then again, I know some well-knonw people have thought that was a blind alley. Guess I'll go see if I can get a login id.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Specifics, please. Instructions, what they should do and don't, or what instructions are missing and why they are required in a non-broken implementation. Etc.
Otherwise, how am I to know that you aren't just another x86 inboi mad because there is another potential competitor?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Did you check wikipedia, or are you just saying that the chips that have been put together so far don't count for some reason?
(There have been some non-FPGA, unless I'm mis-reading something.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Isn't donating to something like this always going to be something of a gamble?
Yeah, they're going to lose for a while.
Hopefully, not too many casual donors will be upset that their investment in the future (as opposed to in stocks, bonds, etc.) doesn't turn into a fountain of gold for one and all by tomorrow afternoon.
(If you want an investment in something I can guarantee will give you 10x profit tomorrow, I have some money market stuff and bundled loans for you.)
This isn't an investment, it's a donation, non-profit encouragement for a horse that no one wants to let into the race.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.