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We will never have competitive chips that are open down to the transistor and process level. Down to the RTL, sure. But a truly open competitive chip, never ev
by analognoise 7y ago
We will never have competitive chips that are open down to the transistor and process level.
Down to the RTL, sure. But a truly open competitive chip, never ever.
You might get one on some ancient process from 20 years ago, which will be handily outclassed in every single metric except openness, which people make noise about but don't actually pay for (so no business case).
- happycube 7y agoA ~20 year old process... that'd be 250nm or 180nm, which is Just Fine for many microcontrollers, if not the new 600mhz-1ghz Cortex M7's...
- analognoise 7y agoIf the 180nm design is good enough, and migrated it to a new process, you'd get more chips per wafer. Hence never competitive. "It's open!" doesn't make a business decide to buy a million and put them in a product - cost, features, availability, support do. Nobody cares about "open silicon" - it's only spouted by people who don't understand actual electronics, or if they do, they certainly don't understand the economics. It will never happen. If it did, it wouldn't be useful. It makes zero sense.
- ghettoimp 7y agoFrom a corporate perspective, I think you're absolutely right, this kind of thing will never be profitable. From a state perspective, being reliant on other countries for your electronic may seem like such a threat to your ability to remain sovereign that it's worth developing your own, even if you are generations behind the latest and greatest.
- analognoise 7y agoTrue! But do you think they'd open up that process? Hell no!