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[libreriscv.git] / 22nm_PowerPI.mdwn

diff --git a/22nm_PowerPI.mdwn b/22nm_PowerPI.mdwn
index ab4b4216cdf7956368f88b9ee76c37b33dba4efd..aab071fec4b298ca31b9b2e1ae17c0fe6401f93c 100644 (file)
--- a/22nm_PowerPI.mdwn
+++ b/22nm_PowerPI.mdwn
@@ -19,13 +19,45 @@ With enough direct customers, VC funding may not even be needed.  This is
 a preferred route that is not unreasonable and has been achieved before
 in the Silicon Industry.
 
+**This is a POWER PI candidate, but why was the Raspberry Pi successful?**
+
+As a dedicated Set-Top Box / IPTV solution, the initial Pi processor,
+the 700 mhz ARM11 BCM2835, was only available from Broadcomm in
+Minimum Order  Quantities (MOQ) of 5 million and above.  As a
+specialist Vertical Market Applications Processor, it was *not
+available* for use in products on the general market.
+
+The *only reason*
+that it went into the Raspberry Pi at all (selling in far smaller quantities) was because Eben Upton was an employee of Broadcom and had access to NDA'd internal datasheets.  Crucially: on
+learning that it was to be deployed in an Educational market, Broadcom
+could not exactly say "no".
+
+In eight years, 36 million "Pi" units have been sold.  However this is not
+all the same processor: there are four variants (Model A/B thru Pi 4). Thus
+actual quantities sold through the Pi Foundation of any one given processor
+average only around a million units, each processor.  As above: 1 million
+sales barely covers the NREs.
+
+In the intervening years, despite persistent requests on Pi Forums,
+even efforts by the Raspberry Pi Foundation themselves to see a non-Broadcom processor
+be developed and deployed have not been successful because a Pi-only-centric
+processor *does not have a large enough market share to justify the NREs*.
+
+**The lesson here is that a low-cost processor must cover multiple markets
+to be successful**.
+
+Consequently the Libre-SOC "POWER Pi" is designed to enter multiple
+disparate large-volume markets: the Educational and Open aspects
+may thus be considered an essential part of the P.R. rather than as
+major sales opportunities.
+
 # Specs for 22/28nm SOC
 
 **Overall goal: an SoC that is capable of meeting multiple markets:**
 
 * Basic "Pi" style SBC role (aka POWER-Pi)
   - Power consumption to be **strictly** limited to under 3.5 watts
-    so as to be passively-cooled and significantly reduce product costs,
+    so as to be passively-cooled and significantly reduce OEM product costs,
     as well as increase reliability
 * Libre-style smartphone, tablet, netbook and chromebook products
   - Pine64, Purism, FairPhone, many others
@@ -44,7 +76,7 @@ up to 12-14 different products.
 **Three different pin packages:**
 
 * 400-450 pin FBGA 18mm 0.8mm and 14mm 0.6mm pitch
-  - single 32-bit DDR3/4 interface.
+  - single 32-bit DDR3/4 interface (appx 120 pins incl. VSS/VDD)
   - Suitable for smaller products.
   - 0.8mm pitch is easier for low-cost China PCB manufacturing
   - This lesson is learned from Freescale's 19-year-LTS iMX6 SoC
@@ -102,7 +134,7 @@ NREs are still required**
 
 # Functionality
 
- - 4 Core dual-issue LibreSOC OpenPOWER CPU
+ - 4 Core SMP dual-issue LibreSOC OpenPOWER CPU
  - SimpleV Capability with VPU and GPU Instructions *no need for separate GPU*
  - IOMMU
  - PCIe Host Controller
@@ -118,6 +150,8 @@ NREs are still required**
  - Standard "Pi / Arduino" SoC-style interfaces including UART, I2C,
    SPI, GPIO, PWM, EINT, AC97.
 
+The "PI / Arduino" style interfaces are provided so as to be pin-comoatibke with the existing "Shield" 3rd party producy markets.
+
 # Interfaces
 
 Much of the advanced section is "under consideration" because there are proprietary firmware issues involved as well as high power consumption and high costs involved.  OpenCAPI for example would, in 22nm, at 25 ghz, be an enormous power draw (IBM used 14nm for the POWER9 25ghz SERDES)