Great initiative but worrysome execution. Can the team share why we can't buy chips in lots of 100, 1k or even 1M chips? $500k isn't enough for TSMC, so who'll pay them? The ESP32 seems to have a much, much stronger story.
1. What is offered in the ESP32 is completely different to what Open-V can bring to the table. ESP32 is not a microcontroller, is a platform for Wi-Fi and bluetooth applications, aim to be used in IoT apps. Does it have a microcontroller? Yes. Can you see what is inside? No. Do you have access to schematics and RTL code? No. Is it cheaper? Yes; and of course it is! Right now it is impossible to compete with big vendors at price levels. They have the triumph card when mass production is taken into account.
2. But wait, maybe you are thinking: what can I do with all this open information?. Do I really care to know how things work? Think about open-source software at its early beginnings; now think how open-source software has ushered in the last two decades of software innovation; the people that believe in this kind of projects, believes that open source silicon will unleash, as its software counterpart, a flood of innovation, hardware-wise. Imagine what could we do in a future, where small IC design startups could have access to any kind of RTL code or open silicon analog circuitry to build their own projects, to being able to use the Open-V code as a core, and add accelerators, peripherals, or whatever is needed. ENDLESS possibilities, but we have to start somewhere, and that's Open-V.
I know I may have been too aggressive, but I'm just too passionate about this :)