4 ms·

This is big news - open hardware backed by a major global power is going to have a real affect - and the fabs don't have to be the 10nm billion dollar versions.

This is big news - open hardware backed by a major global power is going to have a real affect - and the fabs don't have to be the 10nm billion dollar versions. If the indian government can start using some muscle here - all government IOT devices must use this processor and this software stack and you can see a global standard emerge from the open standards. I think I might be dreaming too much

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
The S class and H class sound interesting, perhaps that they could be used in a desktop/laptop. Earlier discussions of Shakti Processors seemed to suggest that it was all embedded devices.
slang800 7y ago
> all government IOT devices must use this processor and this software stack and you can see a global standard emerge from the open standards Why would India-specific anti-competitive restrictions result in other countries around the world adopting this processor as a standard? Also, this isn't the first open CPU project. It's based on the RISC-V architecture and there are other RISC-V processors that you can buy today from companies like https://www.sifive.com/ https://www.sifive.com/.
- StudentStuff 7y ago
  Brazil tried this tariff tactic, which resulted in some middling performance knockoffs. China also has some tariffs (hence the tariff bypass AMD recently did with the JV that rebranded 3 year old Zen for the Chinese market). In terms of building up internal silicon design talent, tariffs have not been effective in other large countries. Allwinner and Mediatek are taking off the shelf designs from ARM, getting them fabbed, and writing basic BSPs for them. The only magic here is they generally do not care to have large firmware blobs, so their hardware isn't too terrible to mainline.
  - simula67 7y ago
    I would assume that the tariffs would be a temporary measure. At the moment, there is no semiconductor industry in India to speak of and allowing foreign businesses in would mean that Indian companies would not have a fighting chance. If the industry takes off, I think the tariffs would be removed and the Indian companies would be forced to compete or sell themselves.
    - benj111 7y ago
      Income tax was introduced 'temporarily' to the UK to fund the Napoleonic wars. These things have a habit of becoming permanent. If India's semiconductor industry does take off, do you think they'd want to risk sinking it (hows that for a mixed metaphor!) by exposing it to the rapacious global market?
      - pjc50 7y ago
        The way out of that would probably be the usual mutual removal of tariffs in the course of a free trade agreement. If it does take off, they might encounter other countries' import barriers which they would want to mutually remove. That said, I'm skeptical for other reasons; it's a hard industry to build up and extremely competitive.
      - wrong_variable 7y ago
        I am not sure if you a Brit, you sure do sound like one. You are ignoring 400 years of trade history here. Britain was known for imposing unfair trade treaty on the rest of the world, ( so called 'unequal treaty' in the case of the China ). In the case of India, Tata was forbidden from selling steel in india, causing the indian steel industry to collapse. Same for textile, boats, ... shall I go on ? If you are so found of free trade, allow indians free visas to travel to the UK ? let's watch most brits try to compete with your 1.4 billion, 2 dollar a day indian labour ? So there is more nuance then "muh can't sell ARM chips !"
        benj111 7y ago

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago

The S class and H class sound interesting, perhaps that they could be used in a desktop/laptop. Earlier discussions of Shakti Processors seemed to suggest that it was all embedded devices.

slang800 7y ago

> all government IOT devices must use this processor and this software stack and you can see a global standard emerge from the open standards Why would India-specific anti-competitive restrictions result in other countries around the world adopting this processor as a standard? Also, this isn't the first open CPU project. It's based on the RISC-V architecture and there are other RISC-V processors that you can buy today from companies like https://www.sifive.com/ https://www.sifive.com/.

StudentStuff 7y ago
Brazil tried this tariff tactic, which resulted in some middling performance knockoffs. China also has some tariffs (hence the tariff bypass AMD recently did with the JV that rebranded 3 year old Zen for the Chinese market). In terms of building up internal silicon design talent, tariffs have not been effective in other large countries. Allwinner and Mediatek are taking off the shelf designs from ARM, getting them fabbed, and writing basic BSPs for them. The only magic here is they generally do not care to have large firmware blobs, so their hardware isn't too terrible to mainline.
- simula67 7y ago
  I would assume that the tariffs would be a temporary measure. At the moment, there is no semiconductor industry in India to speak of and allowing foreign businesses in would mean that Indian companies would not have a fighting chance. If the industry takes off, I think the tariffs would be removed and the Indian companies would be forced to compete or sell themselves.
  - benj111 7y ago
    Income tax was introduced 'temporarily' to the UK to fund the Napoleonic wars. These things have a habit of becoming permanent. If India's semiconductor industry does take off, do you think they'd want to risk sinking it (hows that for a mixed metaphor!) by exposing it to the rapacious global market?
    - pjc50 7y ago
      The way out of that would probably be the usual mutual removal of tariffs in the course of a free trade agreement. If it does take off, they might encounter other countries' import barriers which they would want to mutually remove. That said, I'm skeptical for other reasons; it's a hard industry to build up and extremely competitive.
    - wrong_variable 7y ago
      I am not sure if you a Brit, you sure do sound like one. You are ignoring 400 years of trade history here. Britain was known for imposing unfair trade treaty on the rest of the world, ( so called 'unequal treaty' in the case of the China ). In the case of India, Tata was forbidden from selling steel in india, causing the indian steel industry to collapse. Same for textile, boats, ... shall I go on ? If you are so found of free trade, allow indians free visas to travel to the UK ? let's watch most brits try to compete with your 1.4 billion, 2 dollar a day indian labour ? So there is more nuance then "muh can't sell ARM chips !"
      - benj111 7y ago