the cost of doing say a 180nm chip is somewhere around... USD $10,000. that's $10,000 per shot... and you end up with something around... maybe... 200mhz maxim

the cost of doing say a 180nm chip is somewhere around... USD $10,000. that's $10,000 per shot... and you end up with something around... maybe... 200mhz maximum? and consuming vast amounts of power, relative to today's technology? here's the really interesting thing: i've been in touch with the head of the shakti team, madhu, and he tells me that the Indian Govt has basically given him CARTE BLANCH to design processors for primarily the indian market but also world-wide distribution. the "catch"? due to Intel getting into bed with the NSA, the entire chip and its associated source code MUST be entirely libre, right down to the bedrock. funnily enough, i don't have a problem with that... do you? :) so in discussions with him last week (he is very busy on a tape-out deadline at the moment), he said that he would be happy to offer the open hardware community free access to the university's 180nm fab, to be able to do proof-of-concept testing, and that he also wants to make available his team and expertise to create an entirely libre RISC-V multi-core SoC. i have done a preliminary design here: http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/shakti/m_class/ http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/shakti/m_class/ various foundries have offered free MVP samples, and various other companies have offered free access to tools that normally cost USD $80m to license. this on the basis that the Indian local market is so... INSANELY LARGE that they recognise that they will make literally billions of dollars over the next few years. so it's getting very interesting.