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What's your assessment of ERI (Electronics Resurgence Initiative), especially their sponsorship of R&D for open-source EDA toolchains and open IP blocks for chi

What's your assessment of ERI (Electronics Resurgence Initiative), especially their sponsorship of R&D for open-source EDA toolchains and open IP blocks for chiplets, e.g. OCP ODSA? There are many universities and tech companies participating and a budget north of $1B. TSMC US-manufactured FPGAs could be a good compute platform for open-source hardware designs that can be rapidly iterated. ERI: https://eri-summit.darpa.mil/what-is-eri https://eri-summit.darpa.mil/what-is-eri OpenCompute ODSA: https://146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/files/4d16ef9f4866eb3f8d71eed63aa843c85b79abe6.pdf https://146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4...

pjc50 6y ago
Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing. There is a secure foundry system for DoD use: https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry-program/ https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...
- transpute 6y ago
  GlobalFoundries only goes to 14nm. Many applications benefit from 7nm and below for size/weight/power. > Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing. Of course. Let's say you're TSMC with limited capacity on your bleeding edge node, operating a price auction that drives up revenue against your fixed investment. Would you create another fab to compete with yourself, adding extra capacity, reducing price competition, and revenue? Now let's say you can create a new fab that does not compete directly with the existing product line, e.g. because most of the capacity of the new fab will be occupied with new customers who could not previously make use of the Taiwan fab. Where would these customers come from? They can't only be the US customers who use the existing "secure foundry", as that would mean supply/competition problems for GlobalFoundries. Any large supply increase in actual US fab manufacturing is going to require a large demand increase in actual US fabless semiconductor companies. Open toolchains and IP are a necessary, but not sufficient, step on the path to expanding the commercial US semiconductor industry, which would also benefit secure use cases.

pjc50 6y ago

Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing. There is a secure foundry system for DoD use: https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry-program/ https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...

transpute 6y ago
GlobalFoundries only goes to 14nm. Many applications benefit from 7nm and below for size/weight/power. > Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing. Of course. Let's say you're TSMC with limited capacity on your bleeding edge node, operating a price auction that drives up revenue against your fixed investment. Would you create another fab to compete with yourself, adding extra capacity, reducing price competition, and revenue? Now let's say you can create a new fab that does not compete directly with the existing product line, e.g. because most of the capacity of the new fab will be occupied with new customers who could not previously make use of the Taiwan fab. Where would these customers come from? They can't only be the US customers who use the existing "secure foundry", as that would mean supply/competition problems for GlobalFoundries. Any large supply increase in actual US fab manufacturing is going to require a large demand increase in actual US fabless semiconductor companies. Open toolchains and IP are a necessary, but not sufficient, step on the path to expanding the commercial US semiconductor industry, which would also benefit secure use cases.