> Physical IP for up-to-date silicon fab nodes is never free. This is baffling. My understanding of how a startup that wants to make its own custom CPU would

> Physical IP for up-to-date silicon fab nodes is never free. This is baffling. My understanding of how a startup that wants to make its own custom CPU would work is this: - Write Verilog or HDL sources for your CPU - Test your CPU in sims and FPGA's, fix any bugs in the Verilog - Send the Verilog files off to a fab - Write a check in the $1 - $10 million range for the fixed-cost component of production (i.e. the mask) - Get a shipment of ASIC chips for like a $1 unit cost - ??? (your specific business model) - Profit Are you saying nobody has open-sourced Verilog files for a RISC-V CPU? This seems like something that's easily within the resources of volunteers, and is probably actually less work than all of the kernel and toolchain support.