[Libre-soc-dev] 3d gpu business plan

[Lauri Kasanen]

On Tue, 29 Dec 2020 18:07:07 +0000
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 29, 2020, Lauri Kasanen <cand at gmx.com> wrote:
> > A giant like Mediatek will have volume licensing and ready suppliers in
> > place, requiring no negotiation at all. Most things they'd have
> > in-house.
>
> Lauri: *it still takes 12 to 18 months*.  this is just how it is.

Why do you think it will take as long for a company like Mediatek as
for a small player? Their product portfolio suggests otherwise.

If it takes too long to explain, please point me to a book or some other
resource.

> the scale at which large players operate, they are simply not interested in
> adding unnecessary peripherals in specialist markets that would cause them
> to be unprofitable, trying maybe to take a 0.5% market that is not their
> core business.
>
> we are simply starting out "too small for them to try bothering to wipe off
> the map" even accidentally.

It's not a 0.5% specialist market. Consider case ESP. It's a crap
processor, but it's literally everywhere because it costs 1/10 of the
alternatives. Because they got the design and license for cheap, and
are now shipping billions.

If there now becomes available an entirely free, perfomant quality
core, it very much will make them take notice. RISC-V has not had any
such implementation, just the spec.

Their target is not the "we want openness and security" crowd. Their
target is to sell billions of widgets, and if our core lets them
undercut the ESP by half, they will do so happily.

> appreciated.  it's not a problem.  the market differentiators are so large,
> and the specialist targetting of each SoC so different, that there is no
> overlap.

It may be enough, but if so it needs to be phrased to convey that.
I may not be qualified in chip design, but I very much am qualified in
investing, and it's certainly not convinced me so far.

- Lauri