<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 11:45 PM, Dr. David Alan Gilbert <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave@treblig.org" target="_blank">dave@treblig.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">* luke.leighton (<a href="mailto:luke.leighton@gmail.com">luke.leighton@gmail.com</a>) wrote:<br>
> ok - to bring things more towards the direction that this long-term<br>
> project is going, i've been talking to processor companies, and found<br>
> the best one yet. i'm putting together an article which introduces<br>
> the plan, and i'd greatly appreciate peoples' input before going<br>
> ahead.<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://lkcl.net/articles/fsf_endorseable_processor.html" target="_blank">http://lkcl.net/articles/fsf_endorseable_processor.html</a><br>
<br>
</div></div>I was going to say that the date seems ludicrously aggressive, but then<br>
I ntocied the scroll bar and kept reading.<br>
<br>
So it would seem to come down to how much work is actually needed;<br>
ok so you need the process shrink etc - that, assuming it's mostly<br>
synthesized should be the relatively easy bit.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>yes. process shrink and a modest increase in clock rate from 600mhz (65nm) to 800mhz (40nm).<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
But what else is needed?<br>
* Do they have working USB-3/SATA-2 modules that meet the requirements?<br></blockquote><div><br> those hard macros will be licensed. they'll have been proven in other products, and i've checked in advance: they're entirely FSF-Endorseable. no proprietary stuff needed.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
* What about the GPU - is there a working GPU ?<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>the processor *is* the GPU, that's what's beautiful about it. to put that another way: the CPU has been extended with instructions that massively speed up the kinds of operations that a GPU does. <br>
<br>performance at 600mhz is comparable to many of the embedded GPUs running at 300mhz, so power consumption will, clearly, be a bit higher, but that's ok: it's not running at 1ghz or 1.5ghz<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
If they need to develop anything new then the timescale will be much<br>
higher.<br></blockquote><div><br>there are absolutely no plans to develop anything new. the only minor change needed would be to the 2nd level cache if doing an 8-core SMP chip.<br><br>l.<br><br></div></div>