Free and Open Source Silicon

These are the slides of my talk I gave at an event of the FOSSi Foundation in Munich on March 23, 2017.

Transcript

1. Free and Open Source Silicon LibreCores Free and Open Digital Hardware Stefan Wallentowitz @ RISC-V and Open Source Silicon
2. Free and Open Source Silicon 2 2017-03-23 Open Hardware Wolfgang Stief via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/stiefkind/17367090281/
3. Free and Open Source Silicon 3 2017-03-23 Open Hardware Wolfgang Stief via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/stiefkind/17367090281/ © Apple
4. Free and Open Source Silicon 4 2017-03-23 Hardware Design • Hardware was open in the beginning, but – Dense integration into single chips – It has become a critical, expensive venture • Dominating: IP-based system design – Composable design & reuse – Well adopted by engineers and managers – Focus on the actual improvements
5. Can this be open? Chuck Coker via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/caveman_92223/4016133284/
6. Free and Open Source Silicon 6 2017-03-23 Open Silicon Design • Benefits of open source IP – Integration can be easier with code at hand – Possibility to extend functionality – Collaborative development – Potential for cost savings • This sounds great, but ...
7. Free and Open Source Silicon 7 2017-03-23 Open Hardware Design • Benefits of open source IP – Potential for cost savings – Integration can be easier with code at hand – Possibility to extend functionality – Collaborative development • What are the challenges? – Software and “maker” communities ... design errors have irrevocable impact
8. Free and Open Source Silicon 8 2017-03-23 Challenges of Open Source Silicon • Reliability and trust in the community – Smaller community than software and makers – Verification of IP blocks and interfaces • Ecosystem and business models – Linux evolved from hobbyists and academia to a multi-million dollar business • Legal framework
9. Screenshot from Mentor Graphics HDL Designer v2016.1 (own work) When I think of hardware development...
10. Photo by VFS Digital Design via Flickr, CC-BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/vfsdigitaldesign/5396691102 How can we improve that and tackle challenges?
11. Free and Open Source Silicon 11 2017-03-23 FOSSi Foundation • Non-profit organization – Started from OpenRISC community – Not happy with stagnation of opencores.org – Goal: Promote and help the community to build high-quality open source IP, systems and ecosystem • Three main activities of FOSSi – Community hub LibreCores.org – Licensing – Community Involvement, Conference
12. Free and Open Source Silicon 12 2017-03-23 Kevin Dooley via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/8435953365 We need more collaboration!
13. Say Hello to LibreCores!
14. Free and Open Source Silicon 14 2017-03-23 LibreCores Status & Plans • Heavy development • Currently basic features – We don’t host code, others do that better – Present metadata around your core • Focus is on trust, collaboration, integration – How well is an IP documented? – Are there meaningful testbenches? – Was this successfully deployed (ASIC, FPGA)?
15. Free and Open Source Silicon 15 2017-03-23 LibreCores Plans for 2017 • Extensive tutorials and best-practices (How to host, publish, license, etc.) • Quality Metrics – Commit activity, number of contributors, lifetime of bugs, etc. • API-Integration with package managers
16. Free and Open Source Silicon 16 2017-03-23 Automate the testing Own picture, CC BY-SA
17. Free and Open Source Silicon 17 2017-03-23 LibreCores Continuous Integration Jenkins logo: CC BY-SA 3.0 jenkins.io Code Repository FPGA board: Sparkfun CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 You LibreCores CI Simulation Nodes FPGA Agents
18. verkeorg via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/verkeorg/25102323896/ The inevitable topic
19. Free and Open Source Silicon 19 2017-03-23 Licensing • Area of most confusion • Open source software licenses are not all directly applicable to open source IP • FOSSi Foundation licensing committee – Clear the situation – Recommend a set of licenses for different uses • Publish articles about license choices
20. Free and Open Source Silicon 20 2017-03-23 How to live together? photo by Prskavka (Wikimedia Commons), public domain
21. Free and Open Source Silicon 21 2017-03-23 Licensing Options Permissive “Everyone can do what they want (give credit)” Software Licenses: Apache, BSD, MIT, .. For open source IP • Ready-to-use • Solderpad License: Add specific wording Weak copyleft “If my code is used all changes to it must be open” Software Licenses: LGPL, MPL, .. Strong copyleft “If my code is used the whole program must be open.” Software Licenses: GPL, .. For open source IP • Critical to define the boundary • Horizontal and vertical boundary
22. Free and Open Source Silicon 22 2017-03-23 Community Events • Events like the one today • Highlight: Our annual conference: ORCONF – Started as OpenRISC meeting in 2012 – Open source digital designs and ecosystem, open source EDA – Cambridge 2013 (25 people), Munich 2014 (35), Geneva 2015 (90 people), Bologna 2016 (120 people)
23. Free and Open Source Silicon 23 2017-03-23 Rochdale Canal at Hebden Bridge. Poliphilo via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 Isn’t that a picturesque place?
24. ORConf 2017 Hebden Bridge, UK September 8 – 10, 2017 www.orconf.org www.orconf.org Part of Wuthering Bytes Festival
25. Free and Open Source Silicon 25 2017-03-23 Get Involved • Talk to us today and tomorrow • Visit our website https://fossi-foundation.org • Join our mailing lists • Contribute to open source IP! • Foundation Sponsorship
26. me Stefan Wallentowitz stefan@fossi-foundation.org @wallento let's talk! FOSSi Foundation discussion@lists.librecores.org www.fossi-foundation.org #librecores on freenode You can freely remix this presentation under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. Find the slides at: https://speakerdeck.com/wallento