+By meeting the needs of multiple markets in a single SoC the product has
+broader appeal yet amortises the NREs across all of them. This is
+industry-standard practice: ST Micro and ATMEL use the exact same die in
+up to 12-14 different products.
+
+**Timeframe from when funding is received:**
+
+* 6-8 months for PHY negotiation and supply by IP Vendors (DDR4 is always
+ custom-tailored by the supplier)
+* 6-8 months development (in parallel with PHY negotiation)
+* 3-4 months FPGA proof-of-concept (partial overlap with above)
+* 4-6 months layout development once design is frozen (partial overlap with
+ above)
+
+Total: 12-18 months development time. **This is industry-standard**
+
+**NREs:**
+
+These are ballpark estimates:
+
+* USD 250,000 for layout software licensing (Cadence / Synopsis / Mentor)
+* USD 400,000 for engineer to perform layout to GDS-II
+* USD 1,000,000 for (LP)DDR3/4 which includes customisation by IP vendor
+* USD 250,000 for Libre-licensed DDR firmware (normally closed binary)
+* USD 250,000 for USB3/C
+* USD 250,000 for HDMI PHY (includes HDCP closed firmware: DVI may be better)
+* USD 50,000 for PCIe PHY
+* USD 50,000 for RGMII Ethernet PHY
+* USD 50,000 for Libre-licensed PCIe firmware (normally closed binary)
+* USD 2,000,000 for Engineers
+* USD 2,000,000 for 22nm Production Masks (1,000,000 for 28nm)
+* USD 200,000 per 22nm MPW Shuttle Service (test ASICs. 28nm is 100,000)
+* USD 200,000 estimated for other PHYs (UART, SD/MMC, I2C, SPI)
+
+Total is around USD 7 million.
+
+Note that this is a bare minimum and may require re-spins of the production
+masks. A safety margin is recommended to cover at least 2 additional
+re-spins. Business Operating costs bring the total realistically
+to around USD 12 million.
+
+Production cost is expected to be around the $3.50 to $4 mark meaning
+that a sale price of around $12-$13 will require **1 million units**
+sold to recover the NREs.
+
+**Even if the SoC used an off-the-shelf OpenPOWER core these development
+NREs are still required**
+
+# Functionality
+
+ - 4 Core dual-issue LibreSOC OpenPOWER CPU
+ - SimpleV Capability with VPU and GPU Instructions *no need for separate GPU*