[Arm-netbook] The future of EOMA-68

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 7:26 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
<manuel.montezelo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2015-05-02 18:40 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
>
>> On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 5:24 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
>> <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 2015-05-02 17:00 Paul Boddie:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Saturday 2. May 2015 17.07.57 Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Speaking of openness/FSF-endorsability, and having into account
>>>>> that the current focus is to go ahead with what is already
>>>>> planned like the A20, with which I fully agree (so please don't
>>>>> take this as a demand, just as showing interest) -- would it be
>>>>> feasible in the near future to have OpenRISC or RISC-V (or
>>>>> RISC-V-based lowrisc, when ready)?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I imagine that it depends on things like availability of hardware
>>>> versions of CPUs for these architectures. I recall that there was
>>>> a board for OpenRISC that used an FPGA, and there was also a
>>>> fundraising campaign for an ASIC version of, I think, the OR1200
>>>> which didn't succeed. So it may be the case that an FPGA solution
>>>> is the only remotely near-future option, and that brings a lot of
>>>> other issues.
>>>
>>>
>>> Basically, the underlying question of what I was wondering (because
>>> I don't have any idea about hardware manufacturing), is if instead
>>> of asking companies to manufacture EOMA-68 A20 CPU cards, they
>>> could be asked to manufacture the same but with OpenRISC or RISC-V
>>> cores instead.
>>
>>
>> yeeess...  but to do so requires those steps (1) through (6) i told
>> you about.  you can't just drop a processor onto a board and hope for
>> the best, you actually have to custom-design the *entire* PCB - 300
>> components usually, thousands of individual wires (each one with
>> rules).... it's not as straightforward as "yeah just put a processor
>> down, it'll work".
>
>
> Erm, I wonder if you are confusing me with another person, because I
> don't remember any conversation with you about PCBs or any steps, at
> least recently???

 manufacture.  steps prior to that: design the PCB.  source the
components.  guarantee supply.  steps (1) through (6) which i outlined
earlier in this thread, not six hours previously, today.

> What I don't know --and that's why I was asking-- is if the reply to
> "Would it be somehow possible to have this in the near future?"
> approximates more to one which one of these:
>
> a) "Impossible!"
>
> b) "Perhaps could do, but not interested for the time being because I
>    don't know if they will sell"
>
> c) "Yeah, I had already planned to look into this in early summer, and
>    it will take 6-15 months after that --if funding comes-- to get
>    the samples".

 none of those.  the answer remains as i said: steps (1) through (6)
have to be satisfied, in addition to there being sufficient end-user
interest to justify the investment of time and money.

> Apart from being academics, the founders of the project are
> co-founders of RaspberryPi, and they have as advisors "bunnie" of
> Novena laptop fame --among others-- and Google's Project Ara, so I
> think that it's not a typical academic project.

 none of those people have _actually_ designed a processor, nor have
they the commercial experience in designing a processor to be
targetted at a specific market, nor have they *actually* been through
the process of sourcing and licensing (or designing) the hard macros
and associated test vectors, nor have they been through the costings
and project management aspects associated with bringing a processor to
market.

 in other words, each and every one of the people you mentioned has
absolutely zero experience in processor design and manufacturing.

 l.