Rant: ARM DesignStart

[technix]

ARM is offering their Cortex-M0 for free to play around and at a reduced cost to commercialize. Great for start-ups, makers and tinkerers, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Nope. According to their tech support, to register for access, you need a valid corporate Email address and a valid corporate website. Now how does an unemployed young man seeking to start a business get those?

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company, but you need this license to make the prototype. Sense the chicken and egg problem here? What do you think their intention of this reduced cost licensing program would be?

Well I think I might just go ahead and pirate a copy, and maybe pay the license later when I am ready to roll the chips. Damn stupid corporate heads conflicting with itself.

[nctnico]

Simple: register a company!

[raspberrypi]

ARM is offering their Cortex-M0 for free to play around and at a reduced cost to commercialize. Great for start-ups, makers and tinkerers, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Nope. According to their tech support, to register for access, you need a valid corporate Email address and a valid corporate website. Now how does an unemployed young man seeking to start a business get those?

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company, but you need this license to make the prototype. Sense the chicken and egg problem here? What do you think their intention of this reduced cost licensing program would be?

Well I think I might just go ahead and pirate a copy, and maybe pay the license later when I am ready to roll the chips. Damn stupid corporate heads conflicting with itself.

I have always been curious how businesses function under communism; which by default doesn't allow for private business. Like what does the average north korean do all day thats not being oppressed, their "middle class", if that exists. How does money get value in such a system? US dollars work because you can pay your taxes with them.

[technix]

Simple: register a company!

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k in a bank and have some office space (another $100k in Shanghai) first. And the housing regulation distinguishes housing and office (that is, you must not start a company in an address registered as housing and you must not live in an address registered as office) and switching is generally impossible.

[technix]

ARM is offering their Cortex-M0 for free to play around and at a reduced cost to commercialize. Great for start-ups, makers and tinkerers, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Nope. According to their tech support, to register for access, you need a valid corporate Email address and a valid corporate website. Now how does an unemployed young man seeking to start a business get those?

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company, but you need this license to make the prototype. Sense the chicken and egg problem here? What do you think their intention of this reduced cost licensing program would be?

Well I think I might just go ahead and pirate a copy, and maybe pay the license later when I am ready to roll the chips. Damn stupid corporate heads conflicting with itself.

I have always been curious how businesses function under communism; which by default doesn't allow for private business. Like what does the average north korean do all day thats not being oppressed, their "middle class", if that exists. How does money get value in such a system? US dollars work because you can pay your taxes with them.

I have no idea either. China is communism in name and corruption only and capitalism in any other possible way.

[wraper]

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company

First you start a company, and only then negotiate with investors and give away part of your company to them in exchange for the money. Not the other way around, of course if your intention is not to give away all of the rights to your product for peanuts.

[garboui]

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company, but you need this license to make the prototype. Sense the chicken and egg problem here? What do you think their intention of this reduced cost licensing program would be?

If you are making a SoC (not just a multi die package), your already in to at least $500k in costs to get to a prototype in silicon.  Not to say you couldn't put an Ip core in FPGA but then the rest still needs custom silicon. If you hybrid this (external arm or arm in FPGA) you may be in for as low as half the cost. Still at 250k up front, I don't think you are too poor to register a business and pay for a simple website.

[technix]

You need a product prototype to negotiate with investors to start a company, but you need this license to make the prototype. Sense the chicken and egg problem here? What do you think their intention of this reduced cost licensing program would be?

If you are making a SoC (not just a multi die package), your already in to at least $500k in costs to get to a prototype in silicon.  Not to say you couldn't put an Ip core in FPGA but then the rest still needs custom silicon. If you hybrid this (external arm or arm in FPGA) you may be in for as low as half the cost. Still at 250k up front, I don't think you are too poor to register a business and pay for a simple website.

The prototype can be as simple as a COTS FPGA dev board, a big breadboard and a lot of leads flying around. And Cortex-M0 isn't that complicated or large in the first place.

[wraper]

Simple: register a company!

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k in a bank and have some office space (another $100k in Shanghai) first. And the housing regulation distinguishes housing and office (that is, you must not start a company in an address registered as housing and you must not live in an address registered as office) and switching is generally impossible.

Quick googling advises there are no such ridiculous requirement. Then barely anybody could open sort of small shop in China.

[technix]

Simple: register a company!

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k in a bank and have some office space (another $100k in Shanghai) first. And the housing regulation distinguishes housing and office (that is, you must not start a company in an address registered as housing and you must not live in an address registered as office) and switching is generally impossible.

Quick googling advises there are no such ridiculous requirement. Then barely anybody could open sort of small shop in China.

To open a small shop all you need is a small business license, which is basically a license for you to operate a storefront personally. This license have zero requirements to apply if you claim that you are doing business exclusively online. Legally the small business license does not create a separate entity, and the business is still done between you the human and your customers. If you start a company a separate legal entity is created, and that is where the $100k comes in play. And regardless of what kind of business you are running for a company office space is mandated.

In China only companies (the separate legal entity form) can own websites and corporate email systems. My personal website and email is hosted outside of China, in some country that anyone, citizen or not, can have websites operating there, thus not subjected to Chinese laws.

[ataradov]

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k

All you need is $10 to buy a custom domain. They don't ask for any documents, as long as your email is not @gmail.com, you are fine. They won't give you any support though, that costs money now, no matter what.

[ataradov]

There are other (and more open / free) soft cores out there.

DesignStart Cortex-M0 has one huge advantage over all things mentioned here - it is distributed as a single Verilog file (obfuscated, of course). This thing is ridiculously easy to get going. 

[technix]

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k

All you need is $10 to buy a custom domain. They don't ask for any documents, as long as your email is not @gmail.com, you are fine. They won't give you any support though, that costs money now, no matter what.

I am going to try if I can find a suitable domain name for this. They also require a valid corporate website which needs a bit of work too.

Maybe I should create a website for my ARM-based dev boards (reusing the SushiBits name,) create a website out of it, and request DesignStart that way?

[ataradov]

I am going to try if I can find a suitable domain name for this. They also require a valid corporate website which needs a bit of work too.

If they actually check this, then you know what to do. It is not like it is hard to find a version of DS in shadier parts of the Internet

If you are somewhat serious about releasing a product, you will need a company registered anyway, since fabs don't work with private people either.

[technix]

I am going to try if I can find a suitable domain name for this. They also require a valid corporate website which needs a bit of work too.

If they actually check this, then you know what to do. It is not like it is hard to find a version of DS in shadier parts of the Internet

If you are somewhat serious about releasing a product, you will need a company registered anyway, since fabs don't work with private people either.

For early runs, if the soft core can fit in those cheaper FPGAs, I might just build the product with FPGA so it can go live without talking with a fab. (If I remembered correctly, there are local fabs in Shanghai that can make chips for individuals using fairly old technology nodes, probably at a premium.)

[ataradov]

For early runs, if the soft core can fit in those cheaper FPGAs, I might just build the product with FPGA so it can go live without talking with a fab.

In this case, I would strongly advice to get a proper license. I'm not even sure if they will let you do this FPGA trick.

In any case, for this kind of applications, most FPGA vendors have licensed Cortex-M1 in one way or another. You may have better luck going that route.

[technix]

For early runs, if the soft core can fit in those cheaper FPGAs, I might just build the product with FPGA so it can go live without talking with a fab.

In this case, I would strongly advice to get a proper license. I'm not even sure if they will let you do this FPGA trick.

In any case, for this kind of applications, most FPGA vendors have licensed Cortex-M1 in one way or another. You may have better luck going that route.

Well I still need an FPGA-based prototype to persuade the investors don't I? The government-backed investors can provide me with office space at reduced rent and a corporate entity if I can get their money, and that money can be used to purchase the proper licenses.

[ataradov]

Well I still need an FPGA-based prototype to persuade the investors don't I?

Yes, and FPGA vendors can help you with getting CM1 core. No need to chat with ARM.

[technix]

Are you trying to do which?
A. design an ARM based chip that the CPU is the point of focus, or
B. design an ARM based chip that has a certain specific feature, ARM is only the enabling technology?

If A is the case, then you need to get a Cortex-M0 on FPGA to demonstrate your capability of integration, but if I is the case, then I presume the actual "work to do" is more important than the ARM core itself in your design, so you should still be able to convince your potential investor to invest only with an FPGA plus ARM SoC (two chip) implementation.

BTW, if you are looking into custom ASIC as final deliverable, then the licensing cost of M0 is only the tip of the iceberg. The real cost is EDA tool -- major IC fabs do not provide PDKs for free open source EDA tools, so you will need at least Tanner EDA to implement your design, and it is like it won't be cheap. Unless you are backed by a BIG company, otherwise forget about Cadence Virtuoso or Synopsis DC.

Can you point me to an microcontroller that external peripherals have direct access to AHB and DMA?

If I am cooking my own FPGA or ASIC I can use an AHB to Wishbone bridge and use those free and open source IP cores alongside the Cortex-M0 (or M1) and those cores can have full DMA access.

[ataradov]

an you point me to an microcontroller that external peripherals have direct access to AHB and DMA?

You are asking for really strange things. If you have some specific peripheral you want to show off, then why not have only this peripheral in FPGA and let MCU handle the rest. What does it matter if you use free Wishbone peripherals, or "free" peripherals that come with MCU?

If you are building a general purpose MCU, thne you probably don't want to use random peripherals. Your final design will be incoherent mess.

And then again, take RISC V core, or any open MIPS core. Investors don't really care what core you use for a prototype.

[AndyC_772]

If you need to make a prototype that has an FPGA with an ARM core in it, why not just use an off-the-shelf FPGA that has an ARM core in it?

https://www.altera.com/products/soc/overview.html

[technix]

If you need to make a prototype that has an FPGA with an ARM core in it, why not just use an off-the-shelf FPGA that has an ARM core in it?

https://www.altera.com/products/soc/overview.html

Point me to one that don't cost me an arm and a leg to buy a dev kit of. And no I don't need the complexity of the Cortex-AR cores.

[nctnico]

Simple: register a company!

To register a company in China you need to deposit equivalent of US$100k in a bank and have some office space (another $100k in Shanghai) first. And the housing regulation distinguishes housing and office (that is, you must not start a company in an address registered as housing and you must not live in an address registered as office) and switching is generally impossible.

Move to the NL where registering a business is free and no location restrictions (unless you work with dangerous stuff, smelly stuff or make lots of noise). 

[amyk]

I am going to try if I can find a suitable domain name for this. They also require a valid corporate website which needs a bit of work too.

If they actually check this, then you know what to do. It is not like it is hard to find a version of DS in shadier parts of the Internet

If you are somewhat serious about releasing a product, you will need a company registered anyway, since fabs don't work with private people either.

It's hilariously easy to find the core file... and the "obfuscation" is a bit of a joke too. (Then again, I do RE and mostly of the software variety, so it may seem impenetrable to the hardware folks... or it's so easy to determine if you're selling products based on it without paying them, so ARM don't care too much about making it hard to crack.)

You can get ASICs made as an individual via MPW services, and if you really needed a whole wafer for the volumes you're paying for, they would probably let you go to the fab directly.

[tszaboo]

If you need to make a prototype that has an FPGA with an ARM core in it, why not just use an off-the-shelf FPGA that has an ARM core in it?

https://www.altera.com/products/soc/overview.html

Point me to one that don't cost me an arm and a leg to buy a dev kit of. And no I don't need the complexity of the Cortex-AR cores.

There isnt one. Because FPGA+Microcontroller is a big fail. FPGA itself is usually very expensive, restricting the usability to high-end applications. Including a core of a 50 cent microcontroller did not make it viable. If you need an FPGA with a built in microcontroller, build in a microblaze or equivalent. If you need a hybrid system, put there a general FPGA and a microcontroller, preferably some Cortex M4 or better, connect it through whatever.
The Cortex A9 + FPGA is viable, since it is a high end product.