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Message
From: ddr@d...
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 13:43:45 +0200
Subject: Re: [openrisc] OpenRISC targeted
Dear Mr. Lampret
I wouldn't describe the OpenRISC as a processor only for silicon in
multi-million volumes. Even today and especially in the future, FPGA's
will become increasingly more important because of:
* REAL Low cost FPGA's like Altera Cyclone & Xilinx Spartan 3
* Exponentially increasing cost of ASIC production (every new
technology doubles the mask-cost)
What is your opinion on this subject?
Best regards,
Dries Driessens
ps: at the bottom, an article on the subject that I found at
www.theinquirer.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Damjan Lampret" <lampret@o... >
To: <openrisc@o... >
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 20:43:47 -0700
Subject: Re: [openrisc] is Cray needed to synthesize ORP
> In general, folks, look at what you are synthesizing. This sin't
> meant to be "plug the files into synthesis tool and you will get
> your PC out of it".
> Remember OR1200 and perihperals used in orp_soc are targeted to
> ASIC, not FPGA. FPGAs are merely to test stuff and as proof of
> concept. Real use of the cores is in ASICs - read: silicon produced
> in multimillion volumes at silicon foundries... You need at least 6+
> months of experience doing synthesis on other designs, or you will
> have to spend a few weeks to learn it and break a few teeth before
> it will work for you. Considered you had been warned.
>
> regards,
> Damjan
>
Electronic nanotechnology will sustain Moore's Law
Up to a billion switches in a square centimeter
By Mike Magee: Thursday 21 August 2003, 14:19
A CARNEGIE MELLON professor said that field programmable gate array
(FPGA) devices which use electronic nanotechnology and molecular
electronics will keep Moore's Law alive and well in the future.
Seth Goldstein, said the new class of electronics devices which is
called chemically assembled electronic nanotechnology (CAEN) will be
low power, defect tolerant and provide massive component densities at
low cost in the future.
Goldstein estimates that CAEN will allow improvements in computer
power at orders of magnitude in the next 10 years, "without the huge
upfront non-recoverable engineering costs of developing an ASIC device".
He said that while there is still much research needed, CAEN may
represent the most significant breakthrough in the chip industry since
CMOS manufacturing technology was started in the 1960s.
Such devices will be made from meshes of switches and wires, with a
switch interconnecting each wire junction. Once programmed, he says, a
switch will hold its state, can this will remove a lot of the overhead
in traditional ICs.
Up to one billion switches could be made on a single square
centimetre, with CAEN being made using chemical self assembly
techniques instead of photolithography.
One architecture, called the Nanofabric, uses a hierarchical process
to make the molecular switches, followed by two aligned groups of wire
to make a two dimensional grid with the switches at the cross points.
Separately, a silicon based die will use standard photolithography for
power, clock lines, IO interface and support logic for the switch grids. µ
© 2003 Breakthrough Publishing Ltd.
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