From: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl@lkcl.net>
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2018 05:18:08 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: add first update, "why libre"
X-Git-Url: https://git.libre-soc.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=191a5bbb39db2c2a42f01202123c2015d94ad76b;p=crowdsupply.git

add first update, "why libre"
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+# Why make a quad-core 64-bit SoC: surely there are enough already?
+
+So the year is 2018, and there does not exist a single commercial
+"System-on-a-Chip" that is capable of running 3D mobile games and
+playing 1080p60 video, where the end-user, including commercial
+customers, cannot say that they have full control over their
+devices.
+
+Let that sink in for a moment.
+
+To reiterate: there does not exist, anywhere in the world, one single popular
+modern commercial portable tablet, IPTV device, netbook or smartphone,
+today - in the year 2018 -  where an end-user may download the full and
+complete source code of the bootloader, kernel, operating system,
+Video Processor library *and* 3D GPU library, *and* all the internal
+and external peripherals (a more in-depth analysis was done
+<a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor">here</a>,
+and two years later the situation still has not changed).
+
+Now, there happen to be some medium to high-end systems based on Intel
+processors, from both <a href="https://thinkpenguin.com">ThinkPenguin</a>
+and <a href="https://puri.sm/products/librem-13">Purism</a>, where
+both these companies go to the trouble of actually re-flashing the
+BIOS, replacing it with LibreBoot or Coreboot.  They both also make
+sure that the WIFI firmware is libre (ruling out 802.11ac), and they also
+specifically do not use an NVIDIA GPU.  They also ensure that the
+Intel "Management Engine" (known as an NSA backdoor spying co-processor)
+is (or may be) disabled.
+
+However that is the medium to high end, using relatively expensive
+power-sucking Intel processors.  15 to 50 watts just for the processor
+is not uncommon, here.  Everything else - tablets, smartphones, and
+most netbooks, use ARM SoCs in order to keep power consumption well
+below 10 watts and in some cases below 5 watts, and that's where it
+goes to hell in a handbasket.
+
+It's not specifically ARM's "fault": it's just the way that it goes.
+Imagine that you are a new (or even an established) Fabless Semiconductor
+Company.  Your "job" is to get an integrated all-in-one product out the door
+with the minimum cost (where that's going to be at least USD $10m to
+$30m), and the least amount of risk.  In evaluating the options, you
+absolutely want tried-and-tested, proven, risk-free "off-the-shelf"
+peripherals (called "hard macros") which you can first test in the
+biggest, most horribly-expensive FPGAs you can get hold of, then
+when the engineers are happy, throw around a quarter of a million
+dollars a pop at a test chip, and, finally, once that's tested
+and known to be working, put down a couple of million on production masks.
+That's before even actually getting chips manufactured.
+
+The sums of money involved are so vast that absolutely no Fabless Semi
+company will take the risk of using an unknown, unproven design.  They
+would far rather pay USD $250,000 to an established company to license
+a proprietary GPU hard macro, for example, which comes with an associated
+proprietary software library, because the company that licenses that GPU
+design has had multiple customers successfully tape it out.  The same
+story goes for the VPU: another USD $100,000 to $200,000 on license fees
+is better than spending USD $10m and above, only to find that the chip
+doesn't work.  DDR3/4 PHY and Controller hard macro licensing: in
+excess of USD $1m, even as high as $2m.  These are not costs where
+you can mess about.
+
+All of this is because these are *integrated* processors.  There is no
+separate VPU: it's on-board.  There is no separate GPU: it's on-board.
+There is no separate "Northbridge" or "Southbridge" IC: it's on-board,
+all on the same die as the actual processor.  One single mistake and
+the entire chip, with all the investment up to that point, is junk.
+
+And the problem is compounded by the fact that Foundries themselves make money
+only by selling wafers.  They absolutely hate having their time wasted.
+If you as a new Fabless Semiconductor company come to them with an design
+that fails, and yet you booked a production run because you were expecting
+it to succeed, now the slot's cancelled because *your chip failed*, and
+they just lost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business,
+if none of the Foundry's other customers happen to be ready with a mask
+set and the cash lined up.
+
+If that happens, do you think that Foundry will ever take your calls again?
+
+This is just how things are.  Most Fabless Semi Companies looking to
+compete with other embedded tablet / smartphone / netbook / IPTV / etc.
+SoC companies are taking what they can get, doing the best integration
+job that they can, getting it out the door and moving on to the next
+product.  Samsung actually has two separate teams (one internal,
+one of them is a third party called Nexell) that produce Samung-badged
+SoCs on overlapping cycles, as a way to help reduce the risk.
+
+The problem for all of these companies is: apart from the increased speed,
+they're all using ARM cores, they're all using the same GPU hard macros
+licensed from the same handful of companies: there really is absolutely
+nothing really significant that differentiates them from each other
+(and to be frank, the end-user genuinely doesn't care what the processor
+is: they just buy the end-product).
+
+Along comes RISC-V, which in the same geometry has a power envelope
+that is a whopping 40% lower than any ARM or Intel processor available,
+today.
+
+So this is where it gets interesting, given that power consumption is
+key to the success of mobile devices.  Here in Taiwan, kids as young
+as eight carry around a smartphone... oh and a "power bank" that's twice
+the size of the phone (anyone who used to have a Nokia 6310i, with
+a standby time of over two weeks, is laughing and crying at the same
+time).
+
+The point of this story is: it's not enough to just go "oh I think I
+will design a Libre SoC today", it has to have an actual commercial
+hook: it has to have compelling reasons why it will sell.  For the
+Libre RISC-V SoC, those are threefold:
+
+* **(A) the power consumption of a RISC-V core is so much lower**
+  (the technical reason why is down to "Compressed" instructions,
+  which result in a 25% code reduction, which in turn means that
+  the L1 Instruction cache can be smaller, and that translates
+  to a huge - 40% - reduction in power)
+* **(B) availability of source code significantly reduces development costs**
+  This is not an end-user argument, it's one for the OEMs (Original
+  Equipment Manufacturers).  A good example is
+  <a href="http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Intel-and-Valve-collaborate-to-develop-open-source-graphics-drivers-1649632.html">here</a>,
+  where two completely independent really large companies came together to fix
+  bugs in their respective 3D codebases, all without requiring NDAs
+  or lawyers to get involved.
+* **(C) Reduced royalties means reduced selling price**
+  Softbank recently ordered ARM to increase royalties.  They believe that
+  they have the market cornered.  What they don't realise is: end-users
+  don't care what processor is inside.  They just want a device that
+  "does the job".  By using libre-licensed hard macros (including
+  for the main on-board CPU, and the VPU, and the GPU), the royalties
+  are slashed literally to zero.
+
+There are additional justifications for going libre, even with the
+hard macros for the peripherals: the costs of licensing proprietary
+hard macros are enormous.  The highest is for DDR3/4, which can come
+to around USD $2 million for the PHY and the Controller (per 32-bit
+interface).  Gigabit Ethernet: USD $50k.  USB2: $100k.
+USB3: $500k.  All of these costs are per interface instance.  If as many of
+these can be cut as possible, it adds up to a saving of over USD $4 million,
+bringing the development cost down to only around USD $6 million.
+
+Sad to have to say it: being ethical isn't enough.  Money talks.
+Once that's accepted, it turns out that yes, there's a strategy that
+happens to reduce both development cost and end-product cost, oh
+and happens to be ethical and gives people back control of their devices
+at the same time.
+
+If this is something you want to help with, join the
+<a href="http://lists.libre-riscv.org/mailman/listinfo/libre-riscv-dev">mailing
+list</a> and get in touch.  If you want to help sponsor the project
+or invest in the team, contact me directly by
+<a href="email:lkcl@libre-riscv.org">email</a>.
+