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Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

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Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#241

Post by BoysenberryPi »

phkahler wrote: post #240
BoysenberryPi wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't really answer my question though. Seems like the other comment to my question is spot on. If you divide all company actions into making money or saving money then open sourcing your toolset is more of a saving money thing as you can get people who aren't on your payroll to contribute to them. That's all well and good but not exactly what I think of when someone says "making money with open source."

That seems like an accounting mindset. Engineering is not a cost center (to be minimized) it's an investment in the future. This view offers a lot more flexibility and options - including cooperation. It also suggests that you may get back more than you put in. Invest wisely of course.

> It also suggests that you may get back more than you put in

You can also get back significantly less than what you put in.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#242

Post by pradn »

m12k wrote: post #170
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. In economics, the value of competition is well understood and widely lauded, but the power of cooperation seems to be valued much less - cooperation simply doesn't seem as fashionable. But the FOSS world gives me hope - it shows me a world where cooperation is encouraged, and works really, really well. Where the best available solution isn't just the one that was made by a…

Classical economics thinks of people as "rational utility-maximizing actors", which doesn't approximate reality in quite a lot of ways. There's been a move toward more sophisticated models - like that people minimize regret more than they seek the optimal reward ("rational actors with regret minimization.") This switch to more complex underlying models is similar to computational models used in computer science. Algorithms used to only be designed for the RAM computation model, which doesn't model real-life CPUs, which have caches and where not all operations take unit time. Now, there's a wide variety of models to choose from, including cache-aware, parallel, and quantum models. You often get better predictors of the real world this way.

There has been quite a lot of study in economics about cooperation. My favorite is Eleanor Ostrom's work on "the commons". She observes that with a certain set of rules, discovered across the world and across varying geographies, people do seem to be able to cooperate to maintain a natural resource like a fishery or a forest or irrigation canals for hundreds of years. Her rules are here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom#Design_principle...).

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#243

Post by unishark »

m12k wrote: post #170
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. In economics, the value of competition is well understood and widely lauded, but the power of cooperation seems to be valued much less - cooperation simply doesn't seem as fashionable. But the FOSS world gives me hope - it shows me a world where cooperation is encouraged, and works really, really well. Where the best available solution isn't just the one that was made by a…

Perhaps because competition relates to monopolies which is where governments intercede, and hence there is a demand for economic analysis.

The libertarians economists talk about cooperation in terms of spontaneous order. Milton Friedman had his story of the process to manufacture a pencil as "cooperation without coercion". Basically it's the "invisible hand" driving people to cooperate via price signals and self-interest. I don't know if there's much that can be done with the concept beyond that.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#244

Post by lucbocahut »

m12k wrote: post #170
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. In economics, the value of competition is well understood and widely lauded, but the power of cooperation seems to be valued much less - cooperation simply doesn't seem as fashionable. But the FOSS world gives me hope - it shows me a world where cooperation is encouraged, and works really, really well. Where the best available solution isn't just the one that was made by a…

Great point. It seems to me the mechanics of competition are at play to some extent in open source: ideas compete against each other, the better ones prevail, and contribute to a better whole.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#245

Post by tlrobinson »

Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

DARPA is also funding ($100M) open-source EDA tools ("IDEAS") and libraries ("POSH"): https://www.eetimes.com/darpa-unveils-100m-eda-project/ (this was 2 years ago, I'm not sure where they're at now)

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#246

Post by DHaldane »

kickopotomus wrote: post #225
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I think the underlying issue here is that IC design is one or two orders of magnitude more complex than software. In my experience, the bar for entry into actual IC design is generally a masters or PhD in electrical engineering. There is a lot that goes into the design of an IC. Everything from the design itself to simulation, emulation, and validation. Then, depending on just how complex your IC is, you have to also…

I don't know that hardware is inherently more complex than software.

The issue I see in hardware is that all complexity is handled manually by humans. Historically there has been very little capacity in EDA tools for the software-like abstraction and reuse which would allow us to handle complexity more gracefully.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#247

Post by DHaldane »

tlrobinson wrote: post #245
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

DARPA is also funding ($100M) open-source EDA tools ("IDEAS") and libraries ("POSH"): https://www.eetimes.com/darpa-unveils-100m-eda-project/ (this was 2 years ago, I'm not sure where they're at now)

They just wrapped up Phase 1 of IDEA and POSH; programs that were explicitly trying to bring FOSS to hardware. There are now open-source end-to-end automated flows for RTL to GDS like OpenRoad.

JITX (YCS18) was funded under IDEA to automate circuit board design, and we're now celebrating our first users.

Great program.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#248

Post by mav3rick »

ajb wrote: post #212
cottonseed wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe watch the talk first before commenting? All these questions are answered in the talk.

Well since you evidently did have time to watch the talk, perhaps you also have time to enlighten us about these questions. If not, maybe don't criticise those of us who used at least some of our time to dig out some information for the thread.

You could have just watched the talk instead of reprimanding him.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#249

Post by pkaye »

tdonovic wrote: post #4

That sounds pretty huge. I've never seen on Hackaday or similar people getting small runs of chip fabbed. What are the broader implications of this? Will other fabs start to lower the barrier to production as well?

I think it combines a multi-project wafer service with some open source tools. I think they are trying to foster a open source development type of atmosphere with chip design. The current commercial tools are expensive and difficult to use. Maybe this can be improved upon to make it accessible to more individuals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-project_wafer_service

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#250

Post by neltnerb »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #226
kickopotomus wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the underlying issue here is that IC design is one or two orders of magnitude more complex than software. In my experience, the bar for entry into actual IC design is generally a masters or PhD in electrical engineering. There is a lot that goes into the design of an IC. Everything from the design itself to simulation, emulation, and validation. Then, depending on just how complex your IC is, you have to also…

And the cost for failure is a lot, lot higher... it’s a different model of development because there are many different challenges involved.

Why is it so high if the fab is free? Intrinsic cost of development time and tooling?
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