[libre-riscv-dev] minimum viable ASIC

[Staf Verhaegen]

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton schreef op vr 08-05-2020 om 13:46 [+0100]:
> On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 1:44 PM Yehowshua <yimmanuel3 at gatech.edu> wrote:
> > I talked to Raptor and if Series A doesn’t pan out in August, Raptor is willing to foot 30k for PLL design in exchange for some equity.
> 
> that's fantastic.  it would give us (and any other team)Foundry-independence.  normally the PLL is available as a StandardCell from a Foundry... but only under NDA.

Be aware that PLL is an analog block meaning that if you let it design for a certain process from a certain foundry it will only work for that node and foundry. It is not portable like RTL code is unless specifically designed for that but analog designers typically don't know how to do that. Also in order to design the PLL you need NDA to access the PDK which likely also forbids making the final GDSII of your design public.

Also giving away equity gives cause for other type of dependence...

greets,
Staf.