Hello wonderful people! I'm bunnie - just noticed this is on HN. Unfortunately due to timezones I'm about to afk for a bit. I'll check back when I can, and try to answer questions that accumulate here.
luma 35 minutes ago [-]
bunnie your book "Hacking the XBox" taught me how to get started on reversing electronics, took the fear out of the process, and replaced it with fun. Thanks for the multi-decades long effort you've made to make these tools available and accessible and approachable, your contributions to the hacker community are immeasurable and I cannot say thank you enough.
Thanks man!
bArray 2 hours ago [-]
> Those with a bit of silicon savvy would note that it’s not cheap to produce such a chip, yet, I have not raised a dollar of venture capital. I’m also not independently wealthy. So how is this possible?
What kind of order of magnitude of cost are we talking about?
What are the next steps - is there some service to cut the wafer and put into a package for you?
bunnie 40 minutes ago [-]
The masks alone are single digit millions, but with all the design tools and staff costs typically tens of millions is the benchmark number for a tape out in this node.
After coming out of the fab, the chips go through probing, packaging and reeling.
mijoharas 3 hours ago [-]
Cool project. Why is it called the Baochip/Dabao?
Is it big Bao? Or take-away (just learnt the second meaning), or something else?
bunnie 2 hours ago [-]
Personally, I love eating "bao" (a style of dumplings), but also coincidentally, a homophone of "bao" in Chinese (different character 保, similar sound) has a meaning of "protect; defend. keep; maintain; preserve. guarantee; ensure". So it means both things to me - one of my favorite foods, and also describes the technology.
"dabao" is just a pun on that - means "take-away" or "to-go". The dabao evaluation board is basically a baochip in a "to-go" package.
JSR_FDED 3 hours ago [-]
I think it’s take-away, or to go. Like when you order some food to go.
intrasight 25 minutes ago [-]
I didn't know there were partially open source RISC-V. I might have missed it in the article, but what was the reason for having some parts closed source?
K0balt 3 hours ago [-]
Very cool! So there’s 5x riscV cores available?
bunnie 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, 1x Vexriscv RV32-IMAC + MMU, and 4x PicoRV32's as RV32E-MC for I/O processing, configured with extensions to enable deterministic, real-time bit-banging without having to count clocks.
alex7o 41 minutes ago [-]
That reminds me a lot of the xmos xcore mcus with 8 cores. I am curious what kind of synchronization primitives have you added and why?
bunnie 35 minutes ago [-]
I'm actually working on a comprehensive write up on exactly this topic that should be out sometime next week!
K0balt 28 minutes ago [-]
Just ordered 2 to play with!
K0balt 49 minutes ago [-]
Nice! I love the specialized io processors. Fantastic work!
gzread 2 hours ago [-]
This is about transparency just like the Precursor, right? How can I know that my Baochip-1x is really what it says it is?
bunnie 37 minutes ago [-]
The Baochip is packaged in a form of package that is inspectable using IRIS. [1] It does not give perfect verification but it's the best I can offer until we have more open PDKs.
Thanks man!
What kind of order of magnitude of cost are we talking about?
What are the next steps - is there some service to cut the wafer and put into a package for you?
After coming out of the fab, the chips go through probing, packaging and reeling.
Is it big Bao? Or take-away (just learnt the second meaning), or something else?
"dabao" is just a pun on that - means "take-away" or "to-go". The dabao evaluation board is basically a baochip in a "to-go" package.
[1] https://bunnie.org/iris