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[asian1]

Hi
I read from leaked documents at MAI FTP site about the cost of creating MAI Logic chipset in SOCLE, China is only US$ 20 / IC for 10 thousand units.

Is it possible for Eyetech / KMOS to buy the Chipset design, fix the design flaws (using 3rd party design consultants), and order the fixed chipset from SOCLE / TSMC / other fabs?

What is the cost of the above process?

[Rob]

The flaws are supposed to have been fixed, since the A1 Micro is
apparently bug free.

[redrumloa]

I don't know about that. Still no DMA in Linux and other problems according to some AW.NET posters.

[Stedy]

To re-spin a modern 0.13um/90nm IC costs around $250,000 to fabricate prototypes.

Add in the costs of fixing MAI's design (word on the embedded PPC street is that they (MAI) do not know how to do this), design tools etc and it gets expensive. ASIC design tools are in the $100,000 range upwards plus you need skilled engineers!

Ballpark figure, $1 million upwards.

Using the Marvell chipsets and a new design would be cheaper and work properly IMHO.

[redrumloa]

The bigger question is do they care? I doubt it. Their market is OS4 users, and Hyperion has made software workarounds at least for newer boards. They have a monopoly on OS4 compatible hardware, there is no competition in their rear view mirror.

[Kronos]

@asian1

Question is, do they have the resources ($$$ and skills) for such design-upgrade, or even a April-like patch ?

Well, actually thats not a question.... :-o

@red
It's catch 22.6, in order to sell more boards they need to make them more attractive for "outsiders". In order to make them more attractive they need to sell them cheaper and with better OS-support, which offcourse only works when they sell more boards :-P

And that doesn't even touch the issue of a successor to the aging ArticiaS-boards.

Atm it seems that the MikroA1 will play the same role (on much smaller scale) as the A4000 did for over 10 years.You can patch&hack them as much as you wanted, but you will never got beyond some of it's limitation and even trying will cost you an arm, a leg and some of the stuff between.