Open Source Hardware:
Hacking Silicon for Fun
(instead of profit)
Or, How to do precision farming on Mars
Troy Benjegerdes, Systems We Love, Minneapolis MN
Soybeans
Corn
Silicon
Soybeans - 1:30
Corn - Hybrid seed
Silicon
Self Replicating
$Billions
Where's my reprap (or self-repairing tractor)
I can grow soybeans in soil, and save the seeds. Corn makes PLA, and I can print parts for a 3-D printer to print a bigger printer to make a mold to replace the broken part in my tractor to plant more corn to grow more PLA
Still needs a CPU
Both the tractor and the printer need a processor. I don't have a spare $30 million to buy the local silicon foundry (fab).
But some fabs might have idle production capacity (SkyWater Technology)?
If you code it,
will you fab it?
If you code it,
will they fab it?
Hardware is just code, at least at the beginning
- Verilog
- VHDL
- SystemC
- <insert new thing here>
NodeJS for hardware?
Hardware is inherently parallel and asynchronous... It might work.
Crazier things have been done, and gone viral, with low-enough barriers to entry.
Verilog for seriousity
Most popular 'hardware' language. lots of stuff on opencores
Tools
- QFlow
- Yosys
- Magic VLSI
- icarus verilog
- SPICE
- KiCAD
Business
Ecosystems
- Arduino
- Beaglebone
- SiFive
- Raspberry Pi
- Efabless
- 7elements *plug*
- Crowdsupply
- OpenCompute
- Intel
- LOTS MORE
Open source IN SPACE
# wget http://www.gaisler.com/products/grlib/grlib-gpl-1.5.0-b4164.tar.gz
# tar zxvf grlib-gpl-1.5.0-b4164.tar.gz
# cd grlib-gpl-1.5.0-b4164
# make ??? # hrrm, time to fork, needs a new target
Martian Farmers, or Farming Mars?
If we can make Silicon, space is easy.
Thank you for listening to what I love talking about
troy-si@7el.us / troy@bloq.com
Open Source Hardware: Hacking Silicon for fun instead of profit
By Troy Benjegerdes
