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Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

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Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#51

Post by ThinkBeat »

I don't quite get the open source angle in the comments here.

If I managed to get my grubby hands on a moderately modern computer, I can use all manner of open source software and I can create wonderful new software. The barrier of entry is fairly low in rich countries.

If AMD open sourced all the design aspects of their chips, I would have to get a loan to build 100 million fab to have any practical manner to enjoy it?

I can see that if Intel/AMD/NVidia/Apple shared all aspects fo their chips cross pollination might bring great things, and academic research would be boosted and might end up giving back more to the community at large, but you are talking about very few entities across the world that can afford fabs.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#53

Post by civilitty »

ur-whale wrote: post #14

"Most importantly, we have to change the culture of hardware design. Today, we don’t have open sharing … " This, to the 100th power. The culture in the EDA industry is stuck in the 1950's when it comes to collaboration and sharing, it's very frustrating for newcomers and people who want to learn the trade. As was pointed out by someone in another hardware related HN thread, what can you expect from an industry that i…

It's not just the EDA industry, it's almost all of hardware including most of the embedded software people. Yeah, I get it - I too am sometimes stuck using some old proprietary compiler with a C standard older than some of the people I work with - but come on. On my last job I used a Qualcomm radio and they ended up giving me close to a thousand zip files of driver revisions going back a decade because their build process kept screwing up the output source code. All it took was running an open source static analysis tool and 200 man-hours of junior developer time to fix the root causes of 90% of their bugs - for a product that has made billions of dollars (and I'm not talking about the GSM/4G chips with crazy standards that require tons of real R&D).

You read that right. Their build system outputs source code, generated from another C code base, using macros to feature gate bug fixes depending on who the customer is. The account managers would sent a list of bugs that a given client had experienced and the backoffice engineers would make a build that fixed only those bugs.

Forget about collaboration and sharing. They haven't even figured out the basic business processes that many software engineers take for granted.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#54

Post by GW150914 »

riku_iki wrote: post #40
killjoywashere wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> avoid boondoggles The DoD budget, as usually reported, generally doesn't include funding allocated for specific operations (e.g. the Afghan or Iraq conflicts). > focus on proven tech The average soldier has always wanted proven tech. But what they really need (and what the officers ask for) is training. More HUMVEEs and Arleigh Burke destroyers, fewer wheel 4.0s and Zumwalts. We are at the top of a power curve with…

> , (I think we're around 5th). Soft power remains our major advantage. Not that bad when you consider our outsize role in world military affairs. > https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/25/the-bi... . Your link says US is 4th in list of selected countries, not in the world. On this page US not in the top: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

That’s as a % of GDP, and says more about the GDP than the military spending. The US is number 1 in total military spending many times over any other country in absolute terms.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#55

Post by v_lisivka »

vkou wrote: post #33
aphextron wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. You're right, they sure aren't. But as a result no other military force on earth besides NATO has the capability to launch air superiority fighters from amphibious assault ships, and perform multi-ton circumglobal bombing sorties. That kind of capability doesn't come cheap, and shouldn't be dismissed. Take away the B2 and we are fighting to-to-toe with Russian/Chinese…

If the US military is, in any serious way, going toe-to-toe with Russian/Chinese bombers, I hope you've got your fallout shelter stocked, because as likely as not, both sides in the conflict will cease to exist ~20 minutes after that point in time.

Ukraine is still alive after 4 years of war with Russia. Relax.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#56

Post by pasabagi »

mehrdadn wrote: post #31
killjoywashere wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> avoid boondoggles The DoD budget, as usually reported, generally doesn't include funding allocated for specific operations (e.g. the Afghan or Iraq conflicts). > focus on proven tech The average soldier has always wanted proven tech. But what they really need (and what the officers ask for) is training. More HUMVEEs and Arleigh Burke destroyers, fewer wheel 4.0s and Zumwalts. We are at the top of a power curve with…

> We are at the top of a power curve with regard to total dollars spent, but we actually about 4th in terms of defense spending as a percent GDP Any reason why percent GDP is the right metric? If we're normalizing I would've expected per capita instead.

Then the Vatican would be topping the charts.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#58

Post by civilitty »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #51

I don't quite get the open source angle in the comments here. If I managed to get my grubby hands on a moderately modern computer, I can use all manner of open source software and I can create wonderful new software. The barrier of entry is fairly low in rich countries. If AMD open sourced all the design aspects of their chips, I would have to get a loan to build 100 million fab to have any practical manner to enjoy…

> If AMD open sourced all the design aspects of their chips, I would have to get a loan to build 100 million fab to have any practical manner to enjoy it?

Try $1 to 5 billion. We're talking about something that over half of all extant nation states wouldn't be able to pull off without devoting 10-50% of their annual GDP to the project.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#59

Post by ekroa »

petra wrote: post #24

I see many chip vendors on the list of participating companies. Won't this project reduce barriers to entry for their industry ? and if so, isn't it against their interests to participate?

I don't buy it. Having Cadence and Synopsys involved it is like DARPA invites Mathworks to do an open-source version of Matlab.

Re: Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler

#60

Post by Koshkin »

aphextron wrote: post #42
rolandog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't that mean that it would be cheaper for an adversary to just wait until the excessive military spending makes the US implode, figuratively, in debt? This same concern worried former president Eisenhower back in his days[0]. A similar argument is usually touted regarding the economic strain that the 'Space Race' caused the U.S.S.R.[1]. [0] "The Cold War: An International History", p. 42-43 https://books.goo…

The Space Race bankrupted an already failing command economy in the USSR. However it was a massive economic boon for US capitalists, as evidenced by our aerospace and defense industries today. The great thing about defense spending is that it is almost entirely domestic. We're not running up some huge trade deficit with a foreign power. It creates millions of jobs from Florida to California.

On the other hand, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window.
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