Re: [OT] Crazy idea: Design open-source graphics chip
From: Timothy Miller
Date: Thu Jan 29 2004 - 11:50:56 EST
John Bradford wrote:
The real question we have to ask ourselves is, what would be the market
demand for a graphics card that is 3 generations behind the state of the
art and over-priced, the only advantage being that it's a 100% open
architecture?
Err, well there are always the server and embedded markets, if the
device was cheap enough.
Ah, but it won't be. Low-volume ASICs are expensive. The chip itself
would probably be around $150, not counting $100k NRE. Then you have to
pay for the board, make up for the NRE, and make some profit to make it
worth while. How much are YOU willing to pay?
I don't have $100k to have it fabricated, so we have to goad some
company into doing it for us, and given the volumes, they'll have to
charge way more than it's worth if you compare its capabilities against
ATI et al.
I've got some great ideas for how to do this chip, but they're frankly
nothing revolutionary. The obvious test bed is an FPGA. That imposes
serious limitations on what kind of logic utilization and performance we
can get. The ASIC version can be clocked faster, but we dare not put in
untested logic. (And we can't afford the tools necessary to do the
proper simulation.)
WHAT!? You are making the project out to be several orders of
magnitude more difficult and expensive than it is.
Did you know that you can generate a 625-line TV signal with little
more hardware than a Z80 CPU? Some 8-bits actually did that.
Certainly. But when you can get perfectly good open-source drivers for
an ATI Rage 128 and the board for $15 from a Taiwanese manufacturer,
who's going to want what you're describing?
The thing you have to keep in mind is that in order for this open arch
board to get developed, someone has to be willing to invest in
fabricating it, and that means it has to be somewhat competitive and a
significant performer.
From the mouth of someone who has done a graphics ASIC and numerous
FPGA designs also in graphics and who has worked on graphics boards in
air traffic control, medical, and workstation console markets and who
has written X-server modules for Number 9 i128, Matrox G450, Permidia 2
and 3, Radeon 7500 and 9000, my own graphics chip, probably a number of
chips I've forgotten AND who has been very performance and cost
conscious the whole time: It is MORE complicated than I make it sound.
That doesn't mean it's not doable. :)
So, the big question: How many units a year would be sold for an
underpowered, over-priced graphics card that just happens to be 100%
open and 100% supported?
Quite a few. Think of the TV-connected embedded appliance market, for
example. Displaying a static menu of choices isn't exactly very
demanding.
This sort of thing is ALREADY available with open-source drivers.
Whatever we design is going to be EXPENSIVE. So, regardless of the fact
that an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9000 is over-powered for job you
describe, that board will be cheaper than what we could produce.
Because of certain invariant costs, there is a performance point below
which it is not worth it. Because of non-invariant costs, there is a
performance above which it is not worth it. There may or not be a point
where the compromize makes it worth doing.
Now, this all assumes that it's completely a hobbyist project. If we
were to design something that was, in principle, a good performer, but
we couldn't simulate, debug, and fabricate it, we MIGHT be able to
convince some companies to do that FOR us. And they might even be able
to enhance it in ways that would make it compete on performance.
But it's still going to be expensive.
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