Ben CPU question

Wolfgang Spraul wolfgang at sharism.cc
Sat Sep 17 08:51:00 EDT 2011


> MM1 is based on a FPGA, a technology I have only a vague understanding
> of, but AFAIK you need both a phisical FPGA chip and a logical
> description of the chip you want the FPGA to emulate, right? So, is this
> logical description already completely free, ie. I can download it and
> tweak it? Is the FPGA chip free, ie. I can get the schematics and build
> one on my own?

There is always another layer, and another layer, and another layer.
Until you are down to some rare metal mining company that holds a near
monopoly on certain rare metals.
I am passionate about making great products, and I think free technology
is a natural choice to make the best technology products in the future.
I wouldn't want to work on the proprietary side because I couldn't make
my products perfect. Others may have other reasons why they choose this
or that technology.

Back to FPGAs, I do think it's a standard technology. Verilog and VHDL
are standard programming languages (minus vendor specific enhancements).
The synthesis tools are mostly proprietary but eventually we will have
better free replacements (and we will switch to them once they are truly
better). In the meantime, something like the Milkymist SoC is
(theoretically) portable between FPGAs from Xilinx, Altera, Lattice (?),
maybe others? Those are all independent companies - I think that prooves
the point that we are building on an 'open' hardware foundation.

There is no way me or anybody else will logically corner anyone into
accepting the final definition of what is hardware and what is software,
and whether there is still any 'proprietary' knowledge inside a hardware
or software product.

I'm just focusing on products, and I think Milkymist One is a truly
awesome product, and it will only get better *because* we have taken
care to use free technology in all places that matter.

Next thing I want to open and make more easily reusable is the supply
chain, I'm learning about OpenERP right now...
Hope this helps, Cheers,
Wolfgang




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