Hi,
2016-07-18 15:34 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 11:26 AM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo manuel.montezelo@gmail.com wrote:
2016-07-18 01:38 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
... but if you *don't do* that licensing, and instead try to replicate them all, you are immediately placing the entire project at risk. bear in mind that TSMC won't talk to you if you make a failed chip (first time) because you're wasting their time. and it costs $USD 2 *MILLION* for the production masks (the lithographic masks like an OHP plastic sheet)
I don't really have any idea about the fabrication processes, but according to this:
https://dev.sifive.com/documentation/freedom-u500-platform-guide/
"The resulting customized U500 SoC is optimized for manufacture in a TSMC 28nm metal-gate process, and delivered as packaged tested parts by SiFive."
and contains most of the technologies that you mention, except video, but maybe the custom accelerators can substitute traditional GPUs.
yeah the "except video" means it can't be used (as a SoC). connecting a GPU via PCIe.... mmm... you're at what... between 20 to 1000 watts there, depending on the GPU?
and up to *FOUR* DDR3/4 lanes? WOW. 128-bit-wide memory access. yowser. that's going to be something like 12-20 watts just on memory access.
The 32 bit version is more power-restrained, perhaps:
https://dev.sifive.com/documentation/freedom-e300-platform-guide/
(but I don't think that 32-bits of a new architecture it's very interesting / future-proof)
I suppose that using custom co-processors/accelerators is an alternative possibility for video/display, but probably not easy. Some uses of the SoC (e.g. micro-servers) probably don't care anyway, but I understand that it's part of the EOMA68 standard.
Other than that, I hoped that by providing the links would lead to some quick evaluation of the platform just announced, but if they're not useful nevermind, sorry for the noise.
Yeah, I agree. I was only saying that if one's going to go out of her/his way and consider IC1T for a future option, RISC-V can be a more interesting and future-proof alternative *than IC1T* (not better than ARM or MIPS at the moment).
... we still have to have the OS support. so we still need to wait for debian, arch and fedora to catch up.
I'm quite sure that they'll come sooner than IC1T, though ;-)
The next FreeBSD release will come with support for RISC-V.
Yeah, Loongson would be also good, although I am not sure if they will keep it active or if they'll abandon it in favour of others.
well it's the one that the chinese government is pushing for their independent supercomputer - intel lost out there thanks to the NSA, congratulations U.S. Government you just f*****d your own economy well done!
Indian research agencies / government are investing heavily in RISC-V, it seems.
I wouldn't be surprised if it picks-up pace also in other places like China. And in general, RISC-V is not that different from MIPS / Loongson, after all.
Cheers.