SiFive have opened up all the digital pieces of the design (namely HDL and SW), but a lot more is needed to make an IC. Analog I/O, power supplies, clocks, PLLs

SiFive have opened up all the digital pieces of the design (namely HDL and SW), but a lot more is needed to make an IC. Analog I/O, power supplies, clocks, PLLs to name but a few. Currently "open source IC's" extend to the HDL piece only - embedded flash in 130nm is a highly complicated piece of IP and is either available by third party or through the foundry under license. I am assuming the SRAM physical IP (16KB) in this chip is also a propriety library as well. Having recently been through building a not dissimilar IC I rushed to be first in line to pick up one of the founders HiFive1 boards (its a great board - really tidy) - this project is a huge step in the right direction. Consider this alternative - in trying to figure out some complicated ARM Cortex-M bug recently, the final solution was found by 'a friend sourcing some information from China'; this is for IP that we'd paid for (although not enough!). ARM are not bad at support at all, but we are very small and help doesn't often come to those who need it in this situations, but those who find it. I'd much rather have an IC with all the digital pieces available and an open community of people integrating it into various projects when trying to make my own project succeed.