On Friday 25 May 2007 11:02 am, tim Rowledge wrote:
> On 24-May-07, at 8:49 PM, subbukk wrote:
> > The fixed costs in hardware is so high now that it is economical
> > only if
> > manufactured in large numbers. Therefore it is important to get 'it
> > right the
> > first time'.
>
> Not if you do it right and build highly programmable hardware. The
> only thing you have to fear then is someone discovering the secret of
> the Halt and Catch Fire instruction[1]
'doing it right' is a big if :-). I was referring to the costs of masks (few 
million) and the fab costs (a few billion). The cost of the first CPU is 
quite steep. ASICs and FPGAs are cheaper because it is easier to get them 
right in the first place.

There is a big 'impedance mismatch' between mass CPUs of today and what 
Dynabook needs means that the cost of the first Dynabook CPU will be quite 
steep. It would be easier to create a Dynabook virtual machine (like qemu) in 
software and experiment with it for a few years before taping out silicon.

Regards .. Subbu