4 ms·

I am a broken record. So many brilliant people (RMS comes to mind) have fallen into the trap of thinking that hardware dev for general computing (not including

I am a broken record. So many brilliant people (RMS comes to mind) have fallen into the trap of thinking that hardware dev for general computing (not including rocketry and other such hardware) is so inexpensive that it's going to be super easy. But that's not the case [1] because hardware is a totally different beast than software. It won't be any more open, or any less expensive; at least, not for a long time. [1]: http://www.mauve.plus.com/opensourcehw.txt http://www.mauve.plus.com/opensourcehw.txt

nsnick 12y ago
All this means is that they are going to need a lot more investment than a software company.
- striking 12y ago
  It's not just cost, it's also cycle time (as mentioned in the article.) To "do" hardware requires a company to be fully formed, with engineers of all kinds, before they can even really begin. They can get a minimal MVP using a Teensy board or something from mbed, but beyond that, for anything of any serious complexity, they have to build out a company.
  - nsnick 12y ago
    Given enough investment you can hire the engineers you need. Maybe I should have said that all it requires is more money earlier.
rboyd 12y ago
It is becoming more open and less expensive. The point is that the tools for prototyping, simulating, assembly, and manufacturing are becoming much cheaper. Along with the fact that people are sharing more. I agree that there is no substitute for RTFM. That will always be required. Although, it's layers of abstraction in hardware too. Just like software libraries and frameworks: if someone has published a circuit that includes some subsystem I need, I can very likely ctl+v much of it into my own design without having a full understanding of it. Which is the entire reason why an industry around ICs can exist at all. It's just that more people are sharing now than ever before. Pick and place machines are now becoming accessible at low cost (see Fire Pick Delta/LitePlacer). This addresses many of your assembly errors and mitigates costs. I can't construct a reasonable argument against your points E, F, and G, which seem to all equate to "something unlucky and magical happened that broke your prototype".
- jkestner 12y ago
  Yes, manufacturing is getting cheap enough that the average person can get themselves in a mess of trouble now. It's still got a ways to go before it's cheap enough that they can get themselves out of that mess.
  - ethbro 12y ago
    I feel like "number of people able to get themselves into mess of trouble > number of people able to get themselves out of mess of trouble" is a pretty solid premise throughout time.
jacquesm 12y ago
FPGAs have opened up a lot of options that previously would have been absolutely un-imaginable without access to significant capital. You can now prototype fairly complex designs for relatively little money.
- silverpikezero 12y ago
  FPGAs may have opened up options for prototyping, yes. However they have done nothing whatsoever for production. It's economically infeasible to productize and FPGA based product since the only ones worth using are all ~$10k per unit, with price breaks only available to 1M unit quantities. It is also almost entirely impossible to commercialize any design with an ASIC, since it takes a minimum of $10-20M to design it (and pay the foundry). Semiconductor startups have been dying a slow death since the 90s, and will continue to disappear completely from the landscape, suffering a "death by NRE."
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Sure, but in the past you would not have gotten to 'demoable product' which is a key post to pass on the road to serious funding in the hardware arena.
    - bsder 12y ago
      Huh? What hardware industry have you been in? If it's a hot hardware area (past hot areas: graphics chips, microprocessors, WiFi chips, OC-768 networking chips, ...), nobody will wait for the FPGA prototype. You get funding, you go to VLSI and maybe you produce an FPGA board for validation along the way. Probably not since what you're doing is probably too complex for a single FPGA anyway. Otherwise, your volume is too small and the FPGA IS your product. And that's only if you can't somehow make it run on a microprocessor. The only place I've ever seen an FPGA validation board was with RF startups in the cellular space. And, even then, it was way back when the protocols were much simpler. tl;dr If your demo doesn't run on a microprocessor (or SoC), it doesn't exist.
      - 12y ago
wpietri 12y ago
I just happened to visit two different hardware companies today. One is 60 years old, one about 2. The people at both these companies are practically peeing their pants with glee over how much better things are. Iteration has gotten radically less expensive. I agree that open-source hardware is not nearly as easy as open-source software. But I think it's definitely going to be both more open and less expensive.

nsnick 12y ago

All this means is that they are going to need a lot more investment than a software company.

striking 12y ago
It's not just cost, it's also cycle time (as mentioned in the article.) To "do" hardware requires a company to be fully formed, with engineers of all kinds, before they can even really begin. They can get a minimal MVP using a Teensy board or something from mbed, but beyond that, for anything of any serious complexity, they have to build out a company.
- nsnick 12y ago
  Given enough investment you can hire the engineers you need. Maybe I should have said that all it requires is more money earlier.

rboyd 12y ago

It is becoming more open and less expensive. The point is that the tools for prototyping, simulating, assembly, and manufacturing are becoming much cheaper. Along with the fact that people are sharing more. I agree that there is no substitute for RTFM. That will always be required. Although, it's layers of abstraction in hardware too. Just like software libraries and frameworks: if someone has published a circuit that includes some subsystem I need, I can very likely ctl+v much of it into my own design without having a full understanding of it. Which is the entire reason why an industry around ICs can exist at all. It's just that more people are sharing now than ever before. Pick and place machines are now becoming accessible at low cost (see Fire Pick Delta/LitePlacer). This addresses many of your assembly errors and mitigates costs. I can't construct a reasonable argument against your points E, F, and G, which seem to all equate to "something unlucky and magical happened that broke your prototype".

jkestner 12y ago
Yes, manufacturing is getting cheap enough that the average person can get themselves in a mess of trouble now. It's still got a ways to go before it's cheap enough that they can get themselves out of that mess.
- ethbro 12y ago
  I feel like "number of people able to get themselves into mess of trouble > number of people able to get themselves out of mess of trouble" is a pretty solid premise throughout time.

jacquesm 12y ago

FPGAs have opened up a lot of options that previously would have been absolutely un-imaginable without access to significant capital. You can now prototype fairly complex designs for relatively little money.

silverpikezero 12y ago
FPGAs may have opened up options for prototyping, yes. However they have done nothing whatsoever for production. It's economically infeasible to productize and FPGA based product since the only ones worth using are all ~$10k per unit, with price breaks only available to 1M unit quantities. It is also almost entirely impossible to commercialize any design with an ASIC, since it takes a minimum of $10-20M to design it (and pay the foundry). Semiconductor startups have been dying a slow death since the 90s, and will continue to disappear completely from the landscape, suffering a "death by NRE."
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Sure, but in the past you would not have gotten to 'demoable product' which is a key post to pass on the road to serious funding in the hardware arena.
  - bsder 12y ago
    Huh? What hardware industry have you been in? If it's a hot hardware area (past hot areas: graphics chips, microprocessors, WiFi chips, OC-768 networking chips, ...), nobody will wait for the FPGA prototype. You get funding, you go to VLSI and maybe you produce an FPGA board for validation along the way. Probably not since what you're doing is probably too complex for a single FPGA anyway. Otherwise, your volume is too small and the FPGA IS your product. And that's only if you can't somehow make it run on a microprocessor. The only place I've ever seen an FPGA validation board was with RF startups in the cellular space. And, even then, it was way back when the protocols were much simpler. tl;dr If your demo doesn't run on a microprocessor (or SoC), it doesn't exist.
    - 12y ago

wpietri 12y ago

I just happened to visit two different hardware companies today. One is 60 years old, one about 2. The people at both these companies are practically peeing their pants with glee over how much better things are. Iteration has gotten radically less expensive. I agree that open-source hardware is not nearly as easy as open-source software. But I think it's definitely going to be both more open and less expensive.