11–20 of 68 posts
This is a very important step. I don't understand how this is not on the first page. Maybe a more click-baity title is needed?
Commenting on articles early in their life weights them down significantly, if you want something on the front page you should absolutely not comment on it until it gets there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is this important for? Is there a lot of software still being developed for POWER? It seems niche to me, but maybe I'm the one in a niche.
The POWER/PowerPC ISA is still widely used in safety-critical avionics, where a mature tool-chain exists for supporting DO-178 objectives. In my opinion, an area of interest going forward into the next decade of more safety-critical software written by smaller and smaller orgs (e.g. eVTOL companies, sensor companies, etc) is continuing to push forward which objectives can be accomplished by formal means instead of pr…
This is a very important step. I don't understand how this is not on the first page. Maybe a more click-baity title is needed?
Who is this important for? Is there a lot of software still being developed for POWER? It seems niche to me, but maybe I'm the one in a niche.
The fact that the POWER architecture may be niche is not a problem since so much software can be compiled for it. See the thalos workstations: https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/ and the powerpc notebook: https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/
For people who are willing to use niche hardware for more control on what is running, this is seems like a very important step.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The POWER/PowerPC ISA is still widely used in safety-critical avionics, where a mature tool-chain exists for supporting DO-178 objectives. In my opinion, an area of interest going forward into the next decade of more safety-critical software written by smaller and smaller orgs (e.g. eVTOL companies, sensor companies, etc) is continuing to push forward which objectives can be accomplished by formal means instead of pr…
DO-178 objectives? You mean the same one used in 737 Max?
Any process can be used well or poorly, and DO-178C isn't really a process, it's a set of objectives that a process must accomplish. When used in good faith, I believe it can lead to software of higher quality than almost any other approach (although, to be fair, at higher software development cost than almost any other approach). That doesn't mean that chanting the document name and using hand-me-down rituals is sufficient to achieve high quality software, of course :-).
This is a very important step. I don't understand how this is not on the first page. Maybe a more click-baity title is needed?
Who is this important for? Is there a lot of software still being developed for POWER? It seems niche to me, but maybe I'm the one in a niche.
GCC's impact was possible because it was (with GAS - the assembler) 100% feasible to have an open source toolchain. Yes more software was necessary for a complete system (linker, libc, etc), but GCC made it possible to build from the ground floor up.
Also, yes, the initial GCC was worse than any proprietary decent tool chain at the time, but it got better and better because each improvement built on all the earlier open sourced efforts.
Think about how hard Linux kernel development would have been if it had to rely on different proprietary tool chains for every target architecture (and possibly chip version).
Hardware definition languages (Verilog/VHDL, etc) enable high level chip design like high level programming languages, but making the physical chip requires a PDK (process design kit) that encodes how each critical silicon feature is built.
So a chip built for TSMC 28nm contains TSMC proprietary material and is essentially unportable. It can take several years to move a major chip from one foundry to another (or even a shrink at the same foundry), and the proprietary tool chains preclude a development process that can incrementally improve portability.
This announcement is a a major step toward a similar foundation being available for silicon design. It is very important that it is a large complex chip, rather than just a research development vehicle.
[disclaimer - past life as OpenPOWER participant]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is this important for? Is there a lot of software still being developed for POWER? It seems niche to me, but maybe I'm the one in a niche.
AFAIK this is a libre soc developed using libre software tools, some of which were developed by the group members themselves, free from royalties and independent from any for-profit institution. This is probably "librier" than RISCV. The fact that the POWER architecture may be niche is not a problem since so much software can be compiled for it. See the thalos workstations: https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/ and the p…
A fully open source chip, from Verilog to Fabrication is cool! It may be 180nm (1999-era technology), but that's still hugely important. The world of semiconductor design is incredibly closed source and secretive.
A fully open source chip, from Verilog to Fabrication is cool! It may be 180nm (1999-era technology), but that's still hugely important. The world of semiconductor design is incredibly closed source and secretive.
Note that Google has open sourced a full set of design rules for a 130nm process (codenamed SkyWater), making fully open chip designs also possible for this finer process. 130nm was current in the very early 2000s, so it should be possible to achieve interesting results with it.