On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 11:08 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
so, ahh i would say it's christmas come early but it really *is* christmas :)
unlike many people to whom i've pitched the idea of an entirely libre SoC, madhu instead responded, "ok sure, what would you like?". initially being rather confused by this positive response, i outlined this page http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/shakti/m_class/ and slowly began asking more questions.
Love it. One of the few times national interests happen to be the same as those of the free world movement. Also amazing answer. If this goes well it will go down in history as one of those famous conversations in the early days of tech we read about.
that's still 30 chips for a
zero financial outlay where normally the cost would be around $5m, one each at at 20nm, 28nm and one more at 40nm.
So we have the chance to get a node ahead AND RISCv64 ? Awesome.
the only condition is: the entire SoC *must* be entirely libre. that's right down to the bedrock: not just the entire ASIC design but also the software stack running on it. you know the reasons why: "Intel Management Engine".
Hehehe
https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8762-inside_intel_management_engine
- finding the right team(s) of people with links to the free software
community to target 3D, Video and so on.
This is something that I don't get with the shakti project. How are they planning to tackle the 2d/3d/vpu problem? From my understanding there aren't any libre designs available out of the box, cpu rendering is expensive and wasteful, anything memory compression related is patented and pretty much required when talking about ddr and not gddr and their page doesn't detail anything about that. Also external gpus are out of the question for obvious reasons.
now, it turns out that *IF* the processor is designed SUCH THAT it is desirable for use in the indian schools market - either as laptops, netbooks, tablets or desktop machines (laptops would be better), THEN it is a near-automatic process of getting to market, orders of 10 million units are not a problem.
Sounds like magic to my ears.
note that *this is exactly what the EOMA68 Libre Laptop Housing is for*, and would be an immediate base on which to get demo units in front of people, very very quickly (just have to take care of making an EOMA68-RISCV64 Card).
Indeed, and it would mean you could consider getting molds done as well instead of 3d printing the cases.
so, any ideas, input etc. welcomed.
Be wary of the 20nm node. From my experience phones of that generation were the first to have overheating problems. Power leaking is very high. I know there have been some new nodes at 20nm recently with better characteristics though.
Also I'd like to see the faces of the RPi foundation if this comes into fruition. 20nm vs 40nm all libre and mainline huge volumes and at the same price ballpark as the RPi but without the cartel control they enjoy. Good luck Luke, you really deserve this.