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Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

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Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#41

Post by imtringued »

Shadonototra wrote: post #31
andrewstuart wrote: post #29

These interesting little chips are useless without great software support and they rarely have that.

what do you mean by "software support"? it's a linux capable 10 dollar chip

Upstreamed kernel drivers. A lot of companies just fork the kernel, throw in their modifications and then make you run their "official" image available in some random person's google drive.

This was particularly common with Allwinner but everyone with the proprietary ARM GPU drivers also had the problem that they only supported old kernel versions.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#42

Post by teleforce »

The amount of built-in 64MB RAM is equivalent to the typical RAM for 1995 - 97 PC era [1]. Someone actually offered me to buy his used PC for £400 back in 1997 and how dirt cheap this SoC would sell (£2) is really mind-boggling.

[1]https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-capacity-of-RAM-in-1995-20...

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#43

Post by qwerty456127 »

wmf wrote: post #2

This chip looks similar to the F1C100s that was used in the $3 Linux business card: https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/my-business-c... By switching to RISC-V I guess Allwinner can save a few cents of Arm license fees.

> This chip looks similar to the F1C100s that was used in the $3 Linux business card

Yet, performance-wise it probably should be capable of running Windows 98. If only people still were writing bloat-free software today...

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#44

Post by pabs3 »

marcan_42 wrote: post #40
voldacar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an attempt to enforce the GPL to a company "located in China" I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Companies in certain areas shouldnt have to follow the same rules as the rest of us? The GPL doesn't mention any geographical areas where it doesn't apply

The GPL, and copyright in general, only applies in jurisdictions where you can effectively enforce it. Elsewhere, it might as well not exist.

Naomi Wu's actions in China brought Umidigi into GPL compliance, so it seems possible to get Chinese companies to comply with the GPL.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#45

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

kfprt wrote: post #30
voldacar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an attempt to enforce the GPL to a company "located in China" I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Companies in certain areas shouldnt have to follow the same rules as the rest of us? The GPL doesn't mention any geographical areas where it doesn't apply

As a practical matter the rule of law in China is more or less nonexistent.

Copyright law exists in China, and enforcement has dramatically ramped up over the last decade.

Since 2014, there have been specialized IP courts in major cities, and the volume of IP litigation in China is now similar to that in the US. China used to be the Wild West of IP, but that's been changing.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#46

Post by bradfa »

teraflop wrote: post #37
Shadonototra wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by "software support"? it's a linux capable 10 dollar chip

There are tons of SoCs that theoretically support Linux, but in practice rely on binary blobs or out-of-tree drivers. Getting them to work with anything other than the hand-picked, patched kernel versions provided by the manufacturer can be a nightmare.

Yes, but you can also look at it as a great way to start contributing to the upstream Linux kernel. Take the vendor's horrible drivers and clean them up, then submit them upstream.

You get to learn new things and contribute to Linux, which has varying amounts of value depending upon who you ask, but also you'll make the next person who buys one of these less likely to complain that mainline Linux doesn't support it.

Not a ton can easily be done about binary blobs, especially if those blobs have EULAs which prohibit reverse engineering. But there are always ways and doing so would be a great school or hobby project.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#47

Post by bradfa »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #20

Can someone explain why this uses DDR2 instead of a more modern DDR4?

There's a bunch of reasons, here's a few I've heard or thought of myself:

* DDR2 is generally 1.8V. There's probably already a need for 1.8V logic within this SOC, so the power rail is "free." DDR3, DDR3L, and all the variants of DDR4 use a lower voltage. No one wants another power supply rail just to power some internal-to-the-SOC memory if they don't have to.

* DDR2 is easily available in single die x16 (data bus width) 64MB (512Mb) sizes. DDR3 may be available in this size, but DDR4 is almost certainly not available or would require buying dies which don't sell a lot so becomes risky.

* DDR2 in single-die configurations is super simple to hook up.

* DDR2 in this size die isn't going away any time soon and may likely be the cheapest way to get a smaller amount of RAM.

* SIP vendors often can negotiate very good and stable pricing for RAM, which is a big benefit to the PCB design integrator as they then don't have as crazy of price fluctuations which are common in the RAM market. This makes the SIP more attractive to some customers (the PCB designer, not the end user).

* DDR2 can likely keep this speed of CPU fed with data fast enough that the RAM won't be the bottleneck for many workloads.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#48

Post by IshKebab »

bradfa wrote: post #46
teraflop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of SoCs that theoretically support Linux, but in practice rely on binary blobs or out-of-tree drivers. Getting them to work with anything other than the hand-picked, patched kernel versions provided by the manufacturer can be a nightmare.

Yes, but you can also look at it as a great way to start contributing to the upstream Linux kernel. Take the vendor's horrible drivers and clean them up, then submit them upstream. You get to learn new things and contribute to Linux, which has varying amounts of value depending upon who you ask, but also you'll make the next person who buys one of these less likely to complain that mainline Linux doesn't support it.…

"You can also look at this lack of support as a great way to start doing all the work yourself!"

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#49

Post by IshKebab »

imtringued wrote: post #41
Shadonototra wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by "software support"? it's a linux capable 10 dollar chip

Upstreamed kernel drivers. A lot of companies just fork the kernel, throw in their modifications and then make you run their "official" image available in some random person's google drive. This was particularly common with Allwinner but everyone with the proprietary ARM GPU drivers also had the problem that they only supported old kernel versions.

Can you blame them? It's mostly Linux's driver model that is to blame here.

Re: Allwinner D1s/F133 RISC-V Processor Integrates 64MB DDR2

#50

Post by rollcat »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #43
wmf wrote: post #2

This chip looks similar to the F1C100s that was used in the $3 Linux business card: https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/my-business-c... By switching to RISC-V I guess Allwinner can save a few cents of Arm license fees.

> This chip looks similar to the F1C100s that was used in the $3 Linux business card Yet, performance-wise it probably should be capable of running Windows 98. If only people still were writing bloat-free software today...

Some of the bloat is institutional, or maybe we should say, "civilisational"? Supporting TLS, modern hardware, media codecs, and so on - this puts a lower bound on the size of a "full" desktop OS, before you even consider a web browser. The next question is what kind of software do you need to get useful work done - not everyone writes code; if you want to edit audio, video, photos, do CAD, etc sometimes you simply need the horsepower.

Also, check out this: https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2021-07-07-old-computer-challe...

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