Comment by PinguTS | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PinguTS | Hacker News Reader

Please explain: What would be the benefit of an open source chip?

At the end of the day, the chip is a physical thing that have to be produced by someone. As long as there is no 3D printer, which can build nano structures to makes chips, I can only implement it into a FPGA. The main FPGA providers are either Altera or Xilinx and both a very expansive. So they are good for prototyping or very low volume. But for anything beyond, I need a specific implementation. Okay, I could go to a foundry like Samsung (or other) and order according to my design. But, even that requires a very high volume in the millions to make it affordable and viable from a business perspective. Especially, if it is intended for the IoT market. On the other side, I can buy ARM Cortex M0 and Cortex M1 for cheap from NXP and other for less than $1. They are power full and power consumption is very low.

Just to mention, the other day the WRTnode[1] was released for less den $25 or look at an Raspberry PI Compute. Don't get me wrong, Yes, I would like to see those with an open source chip. But would that be really a viable business case, except from the University context?

[1] http://wrtnode.com/

On reason that's mentioned in the article: paranoia. If the chip is open-source, you can at least theoretically audit its manufacturing to make sure no backdoor is being inserted.

Also, return to the taxpayer. To me, a publicly-funded verification of RISC-V would bring wider benefits than that of a proprietary ISA like ARM [1].

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~acjf3/arm/

If you want to write a paper exploring some new computer architecture feature it's very nice to have a real chip with an actual existing toolchain to use as a starting point.

A startup can make a better chip that runs the same binaries without asking anyone for permission.

What's the point of an open source operating system? Most people buy their computing device with the OS installed, so the cost is marginal.

You are not from the hardware business?

In hardware design you cannot build a "minimal viable product" and then do "continuous integration" from that on. A hardware product either works within its defined limits or it doesn't. Then, depending on your limitations, you need additional approval by FCC, FDA, and such organizations within the US alone. The same thing then with their counterparts in every different country. Chip design is then the next level up. Because changing a mask later on, because you found a bug, means you produced a million chips just for the dust bin.

That means the entry barrier into hardware, especially chips, is very high.

Reading your comment fully (something I should have done), I see you address the differences in the analogy. Sorry.

Perhaps the cost situation will change over time. Perhaps, in coming decades, the ability to fab microchips will itself become something achievable for thousands instead of millions of dollars. And as for regulation: That only matters if you're selling. If you're researching or making it for personal use, the FCC doesn't (or shouldn't) matter.

I can buy ARM Cortex M0 and Cortex M1 for cheap from NXP and other for less than $1

So imagine how cheap these new CPUs could be!

Arm licensing fees are about 1% - 2%, so these new chips would be less than $0.98?

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