Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Free firmware - A redefinition of the term and a new metric for it's measurement.

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi David,

David Craven <address@hidden> writes:

>> I had followed some earlier developments but had lost track recently!
>> I'm happy to see that they have released the sources of their
>> microcontroller chip design.
>
> It's more than a microcontroller chip design. The people behind sifive are
> from uc berkeley and also developed a full gcc toolchain backend, a linux
> port, a qemu and a clang port.
>
> They have taped out multiple chips capable of booting Linux, and are
> still working on putting the finishing touches on the privileged architecture
> spec which is an open collaborative effort of the RISCV foundation, before
> releasing their SoC.. The sifive developers play an important role there.
>
> Benchmarks for code size and performance show that their SoC and the
> ISA they developed is comparable to and out performs at least all ARM
> cortex-a chips with an in-order-pipeline.
>
> They also are developing and have taped out an out-of-order core. All of
> their developments are released as free hardware.
>
> Their specifications have enabled me to study a real world instruction set
> architecture, studying something like ARM or x86 - I'm sure people have
> looked at those manuals - are not something a beginner can study to
> any form of completeness, they are simply to large and too complicated.
>

Impressive! Sounds like something I should look more into :) Thanks for
sharing.

Maxim

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