GigaDevice RISC-V microcontroller - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Pineapple Dan
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2021, 11:08:38 pm
content: Anyone use them? What are they like to use?Do you need a proprietary, sh1tty Chinese IDE to program them?Any non-Chinese manufacturers making RISC-V uC yet? I really begrudge giving the CCP a penny more than I need to

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 12:15:24 am
content: You can use your favourite gcc and openocd setup whether that's emacs/vim or VSCode or Eclipse with platformio or whatever.You can buy them in the west (they ship from the EU) here:https://www.tme.com/au/en/news/library-articles/page/42112/gigadevice-risc-v-microcontrollers/

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 12:49:25 am
content: I know a few western companies are working on RISC-V-based cores for future MCUs, but at the moment, I could not find ANY MCU available off-the-shelf that wasn't from China.There are already a few from China, including from GD, Espressif (the new ESP32-C3), and a few others.The only non-chinese company I know of that ships RISC-V MCUs at the moment is SiFive, with the FE310. There are a couple dev boards available, including from Sparkfun, but buying the bare MCUs can only be done from SiFive directly at the moment, at least I could not find them available from any of the usual distributors. Maybe Bruce knows more about this particular point.If anyone knows of any other non-chinese vendor, let us know.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 02:18:29 am
content: Mouser have them, but not a lot.https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Crowd-Supply/cs-hifiveb-02?qs=Zz7%252BYVVL6bGRLEumsP1bRg%3D%3DThe FE310 is more or less a demo of the cores, to help get licensing customers, not a serious attempt to compete in the stand-alone microcontroller market.ARM doesn't make and sell microcontroller chips and SiFive doesn't want to either.I think it must be very hard to break into the stand-alone microcontroller market. There are tens of thousands of customers, none of whom buy very many, and ST, MicroChip, NXP, Renesas, TI have it sewn up.I think I saw recently that RISC-V is now up to 15% of the market for microcontroller cores licensed to go inside some other chip. There are only ... hundreds (?) ... of such customers, and they make a lot of each chip.NXP already dipped their toes in the water with the RV32M1 chip, with four CPU cores: one each of RISC-V RI5CY & Zero-RISCYand ARM Cortex M4F & M0+.MicroChip of course has RISC-V hard cores in their PolarFire SoC FPGA chips.ST right now has a job ad for a RISC-V microprocessor architect:https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/613325Perhaps weirdly, I think you'll be able to buy cheap Linux-capable RISC-V chips for under $10 before any of those. Allwinner just formally announced their D1, with a 1 GHz Alibaba C906 core. I've heard the initial production run is 5 million chips. Sipeed, Pine64, and Allwinner themselves have announced SBCs using this chip -- but obviously that won't use 5 million of them.Of course all of the above are Chinese, so ...

author: abraxalito
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 04:39:51 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 15, 2021, 02:18:29 amhttps://www.cnx-software.com/2021/04/13/allwinner-d1-linux-risc-v-sbc-processor/

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 08:34:09 am
content: If you don't want to spend money on a dedicated risc v board you could get an fpga board and put one of the risc v cores on that. Clifford Wolf has the picoRV32 here:https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32.It won't have the perfomance of a dedicated chip but to learn risc v assembly its fine.

author: mon2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 10:20:16 am
content: Hi. Have experimented a bit with the following:https://www.efinixinc.com/products-riscv.htmlusing the XYLONI kit from Digikey.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 10:52:25 am
content: Quote from: woofy on April 15, 2021, 08:34:09 amIf you already have an FPGA board, yes.But once the boards with these Allwiner chips hit you'll have a 1 GHz Linux 64 bit RISC-V board for a less money than an FPGA board that can run a soft core at 25 MIPS.The cheapest route if you don't need to blink LEDs (etc) is to run the code on an emulator such as qemu, spike, or even my trivial little one-C-flle RV32I emulator athttps://github.com/brucehoult/trvWhich I need to document and stuff...

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 04:03:47 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 15, 2021, 02:18:29 amAh thanks. Very limited stock though.Mouser appears to get them from CrowdSupply though, so not directly from SiFive.Quote from: brucehoult on April 15, 2021, 02:18:29 amYep.Quote from: brucehoult on April 15, 2021, 02:18:29 amYeah, I think there's still very little incentive for western MCU vendors at the moment to switch to RISC-V.Chinese companies, IMO, do this for the sake of becoming independent from ARM or any other western company. So there you have some, and it's growing.

author: dmendesf
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 04:26:20 pm
content: There's another problem... NVIDIA Aquisition of ARM. They're only after the high end space (to become independent of Intel and AMD) and will probably neglect the cortex-M. In the short time M4 / M7 / M33 are ok but in the long run to they'll need another horse...

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 03:21:06 am
content: Quote from: dmendesf on April 15, 2021, 04:26:20 pmWell since ARMv8-A and Cortex-M are pretty divergent, I do see NVIDIA divesting the MCU part of ARM, assuming they can buy ARM at all. (That transaction still needs approval from UK, EU, US and China, and China has blocked the Qualcomm-NXP merger previously.)

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 05:07:16 am
content: QuoteWhy "weirdly"? Haven't all of the architectures (and/or ISAs) that have spanned "big" systems to "microcontroller" had the "big" choices show up first? ARM, MIPS, PPC, 68k, x86, Z80...The only architectures that have originated in the "small" space have pretty much STAYED small (and aren't really capable of becoming big.)Maybe the "under $10" is new :-) (and of course, have an ISA designed before chips is new.)

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 07:44:41 am
content: Quote from: westfw on April 27, 2021, 05:07:16 amI think ARM started off small and worked its way up... There was a time when ARM was only known as a low power embedded / microcontroller core (albeit a high end one) yet now we have ARM based servers. x86 never really worked as small cores.The thing is, it is not where the core starts that matters, it is whether the design was scalable. Those processors that stayed small was not scalable.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 08:04:58 am
content: The ISA is allways designed before th chip - it kind of has too unless one writes microcode later and starts with a kind of universal hardware.The x86 have started small - kind of still 8080 compatible. The original 8086 was pretty small too and there was a 80186 µC variant too.The ARM CPU did not start small - at the start they about competed with Motorola 68K and i80286 in desktop computers. It was 32 bits from the start.If the GD chip takes over the periphery from there STM32 clone, they could have a very nice market. For the modern µCs the actual CPU core does not matter that much. If the periphery and pinout fit's it could be as little as to recompile the C code. Given the lead times for some ARM based µcs, there may be enough desparate customers.Of cause GD could as well sell the ARM chips. The savings on licensing may not be that high, but for the cost sensitive markts even cents may count.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 08:11:32 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on April 27, 2021, 08:04:58 amThe GD32VF103 line is pin-to-pin, spec-for-spec and peripheral-to-peripheral identical to their GD32F103 line except the CPU core. And GD32F103 is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for STM32F103 line.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 08:11:32 amPoliticians are 'supposed' to be honest, flying cars were 'supposed' to be the norm by the 1980's. Those claims weren't true, and neither is yours.Please point to a *English* peer reviewed on-line article detailing what is 100% identical, what isn't and why between the GD32F103 and the STM32F103?For starters, I'd like to know how the GD use of a stacked and glued SPI mirror ram in the place of on-mcu flash makes it the *same*.It may make it better, it may make it worse, (depending what you want to do) but it won't make it a 'drop-in replacement for STM32F103 line'.The same goes for the several other counterfit STM32F103 chips made in China by CKS, APM etc.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:12:31 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 07:44:41 amNo, ARM started as Acorn RISC machine, a personal computer. After the initial failure, they had a great success for PDAs running at around 400MHz, which was blazing fast at a time. The diversification to Application\Real-time\Microcontroller came later.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:22:16 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 27, 2021, 09:04:39 amThe fact that so many GD32F103's ended up re branded as STM32F103 in Blue Pills shows that someone in China cared.The fact that CKS use STM only ID's in their chips shows they cared.Do you think that Western buyers knowing that the Chinese chips and products sold internationally are made by people for whom 'near enough' is 'close enough', will actually buy any of your products ?Personally I'd rather you reply had been, "Yes its a big problem here, we shoot all the counterfeiters we can find, and we are working tirelessly to make better chips, cheaper than the western ones, can I send you some free samples of our new mcu's and a 5000 page detailed technical manual PDFs in English ?"

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:33:55 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 amThose are *their* claim, not mine.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 am1) They can not make it actually 100% identical otherwise they will be sued into oblivion. Using a built-in QSPI controller and a bonded SPI Flash is enough of a difference to fend off those lawsuits.2) There are a lot of opinions on Chinese communities urging folks like GD to entirely drop their English documentations, even on the basis of just irking the Five Eyes citizens. Should those articles exist, they will be in Chinese, and it will have to be YOU learning Chinese in order to read those, since absolutely nobody are permitted to translate it without either getting sued or catch the absolute mother load of flak.3) You want peer-reviewed and online article... I am sensing some internal conflicts.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 amYou throughly underestimate what folks at GD can pull off.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 amImitation and compatible designs =/= counterfeit. The ST legal department has learned that a long time ago, otherwise they would have sued.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:22:16 amWhen did Blue Pill became that strongly associated with STM32F103? There has always been multiple versions of that - STM32F103, GD32F103, etc.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:22:16 amAbout what?Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:22:16 amAFAIK you are still buying. If you have some serious applications that only demands the best of the best, even if I have a project that demands the best of the best, I will take care not to use those replacement chips. However how many of those products actually needs that level of quality to begin with?Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:22:16 amSorry buddy, you will only be getting Chinese documentations down the road, so start learning the world's lingua franca of the future before it is too late. Also unless there is a patent on chip pinouts (which is not patentable to begin with) there will always be compatible and imitations, which is always fully legal worldwide.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:39:54 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 07:44:41 amYou must be young :-)ARM's first CPU was used in PCs that were faster than the 80386 PCs and 68030 Macs of the day, at a lower price. It was called "Acorn Archimedes".The second big use was Apple Newton and Psion PDAs. Then mobile phones.Microcontrollers came much later.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:42:48 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 27, 2021, 09:34:32 amAwesome, you are a innovator, I wish you every success with your chip

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:46:13 am
content: Having a seprate flash chip and use of shaddow RAM makes the CPU part behave different. Even if the µCs are are not 100% compatible, they are so similar that porting the software from one chip to the counterpart would in most cases be relatively easy. With the difference CPU one would need to recompile at least anyway and not expect identical execution times for all details.It is of cause bad practice to sell chips with a wrong lable on a test board, so the users don't knows and may have problems even with minor differences. It is something different for a manufacturers who uses a fixed program and knows which chips he gets for the product.It is also not just porting a product from one chip to a replacement with better availablity. It also help with the learing curve - once you know the STM32F... moving to a similar GD32V... can be relatively easy. So new products may start with the new chip instead - there is always the route back, just in case.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:48:02 am
content: I'm so fed up with all those xenophobia certain members here want to bring up when talking about Chinese brands. Yes Chinese chips aren't the most innovative thing in the world and yes they don't have the best possible quality, however they do fill a market niche most Western players has long neglected: low price low end markets where a generations-old chip will work but the chip maker want to move on.As of those "counterfeits", as long as the chip is marked with its true part number and manufacturer logo, it is not a fake chip. One can not patent a chip ID integer or a chip pinout, even a part number, so as long as the internal implementation is not a mask-for-mask copy, as long as the HDL is not a module-for-module copy, and all IP cores used are either properly licensed or clean-room reimplementations, those chips are fully legal compatible parts. Just ask ST why they can not sue GD, their legal department has all documents ready yet they can not file the suit.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 09:52:38 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 27, 2021, 09:39:54 amI know that, but after that one hurrah they don't really have much impact on the notebook and up market until Huawei's ARM based server chips and Apple M1 came along. Even Surface RT flopped.Quote from: brucehoult on April 27, 2021, 09:39:54 amThose are the upper edge of what I would consider small - tables and below.Quote from: brucehoult on April 27, 2021, 09:39:54 amUmm LPC2103? AT91SAM7?

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 10:00:50 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on April 27, 2021, 09:46:13 amAFAIK GD chips have a dedicated DMA engine that copies the QSPI contents to its program cache RAM upon boot, so it will have a slow boot due to cache misses, but soon after that it will be able to match ST's embedded Flash design clock-for-clock. Since GD made their chips register-compatible with ST, as long as your application don't have critical boot-time timing requirement, it is usually binary compatible.Quote from: Kleinstein on April 27, 2021, 09:46:13 amThat is what I was saying. whatever product you may be selling, be it Blue Pill or others, just make sure you are honest with the markings on the chip. I am perfectly okay to receive a GD32F103 Blue Pill as long as it is clearly marketed and marked as such.Quote from: Kleinstein on April 27, 2021, 09:46:13 amAnd since GD32VF103 used the similar QSPI MCP, using GD32F103 as a stepping stone may be a good idea too.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 10:28:33 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on April 27, 2021, 08:04:58 amNo :-)The *instruction set* is of course designed before or along with the chip.An "instruction set" is not the same thing as an "instruction set architecture".An ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is something deliberately designed to allow the exact same binary program to run on a variety of different sizes and costs of CPU, all introduced at the same time, and their successor ranges of CPUs introduced perhaps decades later.Early microprocessors such as the 8080, 6800, 6502, 6809, and even 8086 had no notion of "Instruction Set Architecture". Every new chip had a different instruction set, at the whim of the designer, and designed around the hardware. There was little or no thought given to the future and either no thought to the past, or barely a nod to the past. There were often some general similarities -- the 8080 had a similar set of registers to the 8008 and 8008 assembly language programs could be translated to run on the 8080 with more or less effort. Similarly the 8086 was designed to make it not too hard to translate 8080 assembly language programs to run on it. There was no binary compatibility at all. It was a similar story with the 6800 and 6809.Intel gave no thought to a deliberate ISA story until the 80386. The 80486 and Pentium where then made compatible with it. But there was still little thought to making different versions at different price- and performance-points at the same time. The 386 had the 386sx with a 16 bit bus. The 486 had the 486sx which lacked an FPU. But they were otherwise identical internally.I'm not sure that Intel has *ever* really had a proper ISA story at a given point in time. All the i3, i5, i7 stuff is just the same chip with some (perhaps defective) parts disabled, and speed graded. There is the Atom -- but it's not actually 100% software compatible.In contrast, ARM has chips of the exact same generation but different performance points introduced at around the same time. For example the Cortex M4F and Cortex M7. Or the A7 and A15. Or the A35, A53, and A72. Or the A55 and A75.Similarly in RISC-V land SiFive has four families of CPU cores all with a range of options, and 100% software compatible across families if the same options are chosen:- the 2 series of 2 or 3 stage pipeline, single issue, in order, no cache, no branch prediction.- the 3/5 series of 5 stage pipeline, single issue, in order. (initially 3 indicated 32 bit, 5 64 bit)- the 7 series of 8 stage pipeline, dual-issue, in order.- the 8 series of Out Of Order, with configurable pupeline deth, configurable issue-width.All families are available (even if not advertised) with:- 32 bit or 64 bit- FPU or not- vector unit or not- 32 general purpose registers or 16- MMU or notIn addition you can build an SoC with up to eight (?) cores with a coherent memory system (single address space). You can mix and match cores from any series as long as they have the same bit-width.All four families are being continuously enhanced with new features and implementation improvements and new instructions (but never dropping old ones).When the Bitmanip and Vector extensions get ratified this northern summer, they will be available across the entire family of cores.This is a completely different model to Intel's "Today's server core is tomorrow's desktop core and next week's discounted bargain basement core and only the newest core has the latest features"

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 10:39:16 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 09:52:38 amI'm having trouble googling exactly when those ARM7TDMI-based microcontrollers were released. I can find something about LPC2103 from 2006, but nothing about AT91SAM7 is turning up from before 2009. Maybe you have better information.The ARM7TDMI came out for mobile phone/PDA use in 1994.

author: abyrvalg
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 10:45:35 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 10:00:50 amActually, once loaded from QSPI, GD's shadow RAM is faster than STM's flash.STM: 0ws up to 24MHz, 1ws up to 64MHz, 2ws up to 72MHzGD: 0 wait states up to 108MHz

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 10:50:10 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 09:01:24 amIt's not the same, however it can fit in the same socket, run the same software, and replace it in many applications.The flash-copied-to-SRAM on reset (and on wakeup from standby) mean that reset and wakeup times are ms instead of us. That may or may not be important in a particular application. Running from SRAM instead of flash allow the GD32F103 and GD32VF103 to run at 108 MHz instead of the ST's 72 MHz. That may be quite useful in certain applications, and you can always clock them back to ST speeds if you want.QuoteThe GD32F103 is not in any way a counterfeit. It doesn't pretend to be an STM32F103. It's just highly compatible with it.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 12:45:43 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 09:48:02 amIt's not xenophobia. Its pointing out business practices that are not tolerated here.If China wanted to export for example the Land Wing SUV that looks 100% like a land rover. The entire process of copying some other company is appalling to us. If you cannot understand this, you need to take some lessons on cultural tolerance. There are cultures, where its acceptable for two collogues to kiss at the beginning of a work day*. Would that be acceptable in your country? No. It is acceptable in one of the country, where ST is coming from.Copying is the same. We dont hate you. We hate what you are doing. Very different. And would prefer you rather used that brain mass to make something instead of copy cats.*not since 2020I can probably list a dozen Chinese company that has been innovating, and they are successful, and everyone is better off because they do that.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 01:16:47 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 27, 2021, 10:50:10 amNot only is the GD32F103 a workalike, and not a counterfeit, Its exactly like a multitude of workalike parts almost every semiconductor maker has been making since the dawn of semiconductors. In the early days most workalikes were true second sources, produced with the blessing and cooperation of the original developer. There were always independently produced workalikes, though. As true second sources have changed from being vital for penetrating many types of end equipment, to being of much lower value, workalikes have steadily expanded.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 02:18:15 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 27, 2021, 12:45:43 pmUs Chinese will not copy anything unless we can not buy it through legal means, or fear that we might not be able to buy it any more. We copy certain things simply because we have to work around those stupid embargoes the West has put on China and Chinese citizens collectively while not have our existing technology implode on itself. Being kicked out of a certain chip distributor's Shanghai office simply for showing a Chinese ID when they asked for my (presumably Western) passport is stupid, and this means whoever in China want to use that chip I was asking now must find a domestic copy of it if they still want that project to go on. Also just look at the Huawei stupidness forcing a bunch of Chinese companies into copying ADI, Qorvo and Skyworks parts simply to circumnavigate that embargo. Had your governments and other political heads learned from what the Soviets did in response to their embargoes (mass copying Western stuff) and not putting up those new ones, the default train of thought in Chinese engineers was predominantly "domestic parts are worse than Western equivalents" and the playing field was stacked for the West.Come to think of it, conspiracy theory time, maybe what those political heads want is to force the Chinese into copying things just like Soviet did back then, and use that cultural acceptance problem in the West to stoke anti-Sinitism...?Quote from: coppice on April 27, 2021, 01:16:47 pmAs of GD32F103, I would classify that as an improvement over STM32F103, since that shadow memory permits 0 wait state access to code memory, and it has a faster 108MHz core. There is an Artery AT32F403A, which is also pin to pin compatible to STM32F103, but further improving on the GD32 with a 240MHz Cortex-M4F core and an exposed QSPI Flash interface for up to 16MB of additional Flash that is accessed the same way as internal QSPI Flash chips. (basically a STM32H7 class chip that is also theoretically a drop-in compatible with STM32F103) There is also that GD32VF103 line which replaced the Cortex-M3 core with a RISC-V.

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 08:49:02 pm
content: QuoteI didn't know about that - very interesting!

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 12:18:32 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 27, 2021, 12:45:43 pmHuawei is one huge example.They spend a lot of money on R&D and simply now make the *best* telecoms equipment in the world.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 01:05:37 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pmWhat exactly would they sue them for? When people in China do actually copy silicon designs its usually pretty easy to go after them. You just go after the fab who makes the die for them. Fabs don't want to develop a reputation for supporting piracy. They all saw how TSMC maintained a high level of integrity and succeeded, will other fab companies screwed their own customers and floundered.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 01:56:35 am
content: I would appreciate it if this thread didn't get shut down because of pro- and anti-china bickering, like the other thread just did.Some of us are actually interested in the GD chips.Thank you.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 02:13:30 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 27, 2021, 12:45:43 pmQuote from: brucehoult on April 28, 2021, 12:18:32 amAnd apparently Huawei (or any other Chinese companies) are not allowed to actually be innovative, or why would you Western world embargo Huawei to the hell and back? From what I see Huawei was embargoed for being too innovative and actually led the world's 5G development, which prevented the West from collecting those patent royalties. "National security concerns" claim has been proven false multiple times by multiple independent Western code audits already, just ask UK and Germany.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pm[citation needed]Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pmNot everything in a chip design is copyrightable. You can not copyright a pinout or an ID number. You can not copyright a part number although you can trademark it and China will enforce that trademark if you sue. You can not copyright the internals of a chip other than the layout artwork but you can patent it and too China will enforce that as well.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pmMicrochip could have sued those companies, if only their patents haven't expired. Once again, unless the "fake" chip is a mask-by-mask clone, the only thing Microchip can claim is patent infringement.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pmThen why don't Western companies sue here in China then? It works just as well as soon as you have an office set up here, and you can even file criminal claims on copyright infringement as well like how Tencent has sent multiple people and companies into jail that way.Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 11:37:33 pm[citation needed]Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 01:16:09 amWhile not tested yet in Chinese courts, IIRC ST SDK are themselves open source under Apache 2.0 license. So if GD delivered their modified ST SDK with ST's name still on there it would be fully legal.Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 01:16:09 amThe peripherals in STM32F103 family are either Synopsys DesignWare IP which Chinese design houses can buy fair and square, or lifted straight out of the much older STM8 series whose patents has long expired and is now open to clean-room reimplementations. Patents lasts for only up to 20 years.Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 01:16:09 amST has trademarked the text "STM32" and "STM8" in China, so no Chinese companies are allowed to put those on their chips without getting into trademark law trouble, and that is why Chinese companies don't do that.Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 01:16:09 amJust saying, GD32F350 has its own non-ST-compatible pinout.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 06:04:22 am
content: QuoteThings have to be "in context." The x86 was a "big" chip at the time it was introduced. Designed to be be put together in a system with up to 16x the memory of the main competitors at the time, costing thousands of dollars. The 80186 was designed to decrease parts count, but it was far from what we would consider a "microcontroller" (ie it still had no internal memory, and the "peripherals" added were system-level things that had been additional chips in normal systems (interrupt controller, dma, clock generator.)The "small" systems in the same timeframe were things like the MCS-48, with a whopping 1k of ROM and 64 bytes of RAM. The PIC16C84 that changed everything wouldn't show up for another 15 yeas.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 06:48:53 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 28, 2021, 12:18:32 amSo the Chinese government bought 4G Ericson equipment to one of the provinces. Only one. They delivered it. Waiting for more orders to arrive.After a while, Huawei said, they can also do telecom equipment. And they delivered to the rest of China.Coincidence? Innovation?And then the exact same thing happens with 5G.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 07:23:27 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 07:06:45 amhttps://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/huawei-wins-tdc-lte-deal-away-from-ericssonThe emphasis is onaway, they gave Huawei an existing deal. Also:QuoteBTW watch your language.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 07:43:12 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 07:40:55 amSo that justifies IP theft. OK.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:10:28 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 28, 2021, 07:43:12 amThat "infinite amount of money" also comes with the permission to "buy and/or license whatever patents you feel like to." So before claiming IP theft you need to check if Chinese companies had licensed it, however expensive it may be since it is on government money. At least ask Ericsson how much patent license royalties they are collecting from Huawei each year.I am sick of seeing those "IP theft" claims. The China High Speed Rail is the best documented case of fair and square IP purchase being labeled as "theft" by unknowing Western media. All contracts China Railways offered those Western and Japanese rolling stock companies included both train sets and related IP, and since it came out of pure capitalistic bargaining and negotiations those should be seen as fair and square by all parties.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:17:53 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 28, 2021, 06:48:53 amAlso, just saying, 4G LTE-FDD doesn't work well in certain rough terrains which China have a lot of. It is entirely possible that when Chinese telecoms found out that Ericsson LTE-FDD equipment didn't deliver the promised performance they simply gave up on the Ericsson stack and looked elsewhere.As of 5G, Huawei and Qualcomm took entirely different routes. Huawei's 5G is a souped up version of their 4G stack with wider bandwidths while still sticking to the UHF microwave band, while Qualcomm moved to an entirely different band with mmWave technology.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:03:09 am
content: .

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:06:27 am
content: If you're looking for vulnerabilities in Huawei products, you only need to look as far as:https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=huaweiAnd those are the ones that have been publicly documented, largely in their smartphones and consumer devices.However serious flaws have been discovered in Huawei switching and routing products (such as those used in cellular networks).There is a reason why western countries have banned their products from core networks. It's not just because they are a bit crap, but they have a significant impact on the national security of OUR nations. If roles were reversed, the Chinese government would be jumping up and down about it far louder than we are.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 11:27:07 am
content: I wonder if somebody have consider a risk if ST will decide go after GD-based products?At the moment, you cannot buy GD MCUs from top distributors, only flash.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 11:42:02 am
content: Quote from: emece67 on April 28, 2021, 10:03:09 amYou could have sued, and you could have filed criminal complaints on trademark infringement. Actually if it is within a few years you can still sue. The only requirement is that you need an office in China. Also have your legal guys read on how Tencent filed their criminal trademark infringement cases since they apparently have a winning strategy.The entire civil code in China received a major refactor and rewrite recently along with some patchwork on the criminal code, with trademark and patent infringements punishable up to life in prison IIRC.Also keep in mind it is you not ending up selling those that resulted in Chinese companies making them. You did not made it available so we have to clone it. You have missed the "unless we can not buy it" clause.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 11:44:51 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on April 28, 2021, 11:27:07 amST themselves has contemplated that option and decided not to after they supposedly decapped a GD part and discovered enough differences to allow GD to convince the courts to throw out the case.As of now, we have a huge supply shortage which drained stock everywhere. I can not buy GD parts even from Taobao.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 11:47:45 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 28, 2021, 10:06:27 am[citation needed]Also this does not explain trade embargoes. Not wanting to buy Huawei parts is a thing, not allowing Huawei to buy and make chips is another.

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 02:53:02 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 27, 2021, 09:33:55 amI tried to learn it but it is just too difficult. Even some polyglots say, that after 7 years in Taiwan they are misunderstood most of the time from native Chinese people.I guess if you are not born with it you will never sound like a native speaker.Funny enough, polyglots say that reading is not that difficult compared to speaking.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 03:39:13 pm
content: For the new 5 G standard they can not fully ban Huawei: some of the patents on core parts are at Huawei. So even if they don't want the Chinese hardware, they need a license from Huawei. In some areas the ban is rediculous, in other ban is understandable, as there is a risk of having backdoors. However this also applies to other companies - I would not really trust in Cisco router in this respect either.Quote from: technix on April 28, 2021, 11:44:51 amSo the GD MCUs are short in supply too ? Somewhat understandable as they where a small market share and for a fabless company they have similar supply problems. ST at least has own fabs, though it may not be aor all parts.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 04:07:29 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 28, 2021, 11:44:51 amActually, that's not too bad to be outside China then, you still can find something available...

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 04:55:59 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 03:56:51 pmThis does not surprise me because according to my understanding English is among the easiest of languages you can learn which is probably the reason why it is considered a global language.I scored 115/120 on TOEFL with just 3 weeks of training (but of course learning English in school for 6 years prior).Too bad that most western people won't have access to chinese market because of the huge language barrier.No one expects you to speak french / german / spanish etc. in europe if your english is decent.Not so in china I guess, if you don't speak the native language, you are out of luck.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 06:59:51 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 03:57:43 pmNot really. When supply is tight, companies who have big long term contracts with TSMC, like ST, will see far smaller supply problems than smaller players.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:31:01 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on April 28, 2021, 09:53:39 amWhose law, yours or mine ?Chinese law is only legal inside China. Has your Chinese ideology brainwashed you so totally that you think Chinese law rules the world ?It doesn't.Our law says that IP theft is illegal, we prosecute.ST says that China makes illegal fakes but you're conflating their inability to anything about it inside China with some imaginary ST approval of China's illegal actions.We also shoot back ;-)

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:43:34 pm
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 28, 2021, 09:31:01 pmChinese court also stated, that these two cars look nothing alike, and its not a copy.And its 100% true. I mean, look at it. One is red, the other is blue. No resemblance whatsoever.I'm actually wondering, if you have to be completely braindead to believe the propaganda.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:50:56 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 28, 2021, 09:43:34 pmDon't be too hard on the fifty-cent army posting here, who doesn't want to keep their liver and other important organs and feed their family at the same time ?

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 09:53:05 pm
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 28, 2021, 09:50:56 pmActually, you are right. Probably I wouldn't write anything bad from my government, if they would 100% of the time spy on me and send me to the gulag.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:05:42 pm
content: Do you remember the 8086, 286, 386, 486 era? That's why Intel started the Pentium thing.If your car came with R18/40/235 wheels, other brands's R18/40/235 are counterfeits?Counterfeit and compatible are very different things.No single chinese xxx32 device has stolen STM32 IP because all use different dies (Did you see the pictures?).They licensed ARM, and made their own peripherals to use the same structure as ST.That's good. Maybe some day MCUs get somehow standarized designs making porting the code much easier!This brings competition to the market, otherwise the guy holding the top product flag will comfortably sit, stall the development and rise the prices as he wants.The only problem comes when they brand them as ST's!Check Intel last years. "Our I7 is better than AMD!". So they stuck with 4 cores during 6 years or more, with the option of 6 cores for $1000.AMD finally made Ryzen and kicked their asses. Then Intel quickly dropped the prices and released 8 cores cpus, and much cheaper 6 cores.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:22:30 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 28, 2021, 09:43:34 pmThere is another difference, one car is full of fake illegal copies of Western electronics chips, and the QA for these parts is "near enough is good enough". Works fine in China at 20C, fails at 50C tho.PERFECT for export to the Africa, Australia, Nevada.... Want warranty ? HAHAHA ... we forget who made that car, we had a quick look around (not really), nope, no sign of them they have have gone broke. Too bad, so sad.One of the vehicles has the best tech available for the money, made with pride by people who love their job and don't live in fear.One vehicle uses steel that lasts about 6 months under load because it's the cheapest that can be made because "near enough is good enough", shame about those grumbling CV joints in that six month old SUV.I don't blame blueskull and 'technix' for their constant attacks and propaganda, I doubt they have any choice, and I don't believe a word they write, but anyone in the West who buys a Chinese car is brain-dead.I suppose we will now have a flurry of indignant posts from Chinese car owners in 'Canada' whose love for their perfect red Chinese cars is unblemished after years of utterly reliable use without a single breakdown ?

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:44:58 pm
content: Quote from: DavidAlfa on April 28, 2021, 10:05:42 pmWhy do you think I wrote the Blue Pill diags program ? Have you any idea of the history and the trouble the Chinese fakes have caused ?"No single chinese xxx32 device has stolen STM32 IP because all use different dies (Did you see the pictures?)." Yes, a long time ago."They licensed ARM, and made their own peripherals to use the same structure as ST." Can you support that claim ? I have a letter from ARM stating a Chinese MCU is a counterfeit, I can support my claim.When a ARM IP is licensed, the manufacturer pays royalties on *each* chip to ARM. Where are the stats on the CCP payments to ARM ?"The only problem comes when they brand them as ST's!" That claim is a little simplistic, please see below.CKS and APM use the ST manufacturer ID *inside their MCUs*, it won't show in their *counterfeit* die pictures. It only shows when a program interrogates the MCU to get the information.Because these MCU's are usually relabeled as STM (In China) it takes a program like the freehttps://mecrisp-stellaris-folkdoc.sourceforge.io/bluepill-diagnostics-v1.6.htmlto find out what the chip really is *inside*.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 01:55:19 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 28, 2021, 09:31:01 pmYour law doesn't say anything of the kind. It says infringing patents is illegal. It says infringing copyright is illegal. It says infringing trademarks is illegal. Its very specific. Which of these specific things have people contravened when making their workalike chips? Is there anything novel enough in one of the peripherals to have current patent encumberment?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 02:18:06 am
content: Quote from: soFPG on April 28, 2021, 04:55:59 pmBeing a native English speaker it's hard for me to say. My understanding is that basic English is simpler than other languages. You can get further with a 100, 500, or 1000 word vocabulary in English than in other languages, and usually you can use several simple words instead of modifying words.On the other hand, mastery of English is very difficult.I got by living in Russia for three years with very little knowledge of the Russian language. At a wild guess, I went there knowing 50 words and left knowing 500 -- but next to nothing of grammar. I can get by in situation where I have to deal with people who don't speak English, such as trains or shops or taxis. But it's usually not difficult to find someone who knows English far better than I would ever be able to learn Russian. And if you have internet connectivity there is Google translate.QuoteTrue in general, but the French can be a bit annoying about it. I've never been in France itself, but I've changed planes in CDG on the way from ... Russia to Italy ... and found in-airport cafe staff who seemed to be offended that I didn't know any French. *Everyone* in a customer-facing position in an airport in Russia knows English, and think nothing of using it.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 07:41:58 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 29, 2021, 06:50:23 amAre you sure about this?I cannot see how AT32F403A to be closer to STM32H7 linehttps://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32h7-series.htmlhttps://www.arterytek.com/cn/product/AT32F403A.jsp?t=1619681829265edit: EN linkhttps://www.arterytek.com/en/product/AT32F403A.jsp?t=1619681829265

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 07:48:19 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 29, 2021, 07:34:55 amThis until recently has been a valuable thread for those interested in GD chips.If the tread gets locked then these same pro- and anti-China people will just go and pollute another thread and get it spoiled and/or locked too. We've already lost one to their bickering.Better to ban some of them I think.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 08:56:26 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on April 29, 2021, 07:41:58 amI stand corrected. I should say it is a STM32F7 class chip - somewhere between the STM32F7 line and STM32H7A3/7B3/7B0 parts. Anyway since STM32F7 starts at 64 (?) pins and goes only up, for smaller projects that uses a 48-pin chip you got an option now. Also the QSPI interface on AT32F403A are just that much easier to use.Then there are AT32F413/415/421 that are STM32F4 class chips in STM32F0/L0 packages.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 09:19:09 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 29, 2021, 08:38:13 amIf one made ~US$10,000 from those mis-marked chips, you can file a criminal complaint in China and that is recall and destruction of all infringing products, a fine and up to 7 years in jail for them. (Criminal Code if China sections 213-215, and a few Supreme People's Court's and Supreme People's Prosecutor's decrees that set the bar of criminality on that.) The ST logo and the verbiages "STM8" and "STM32" are all ST trademarks in China.It was never the chip makers that re-marked non-ST chips with ST markings. Not even those Chinese chip brands that came and went on LCSC would do that. That jail time It is always the makers of those Blue Pill clones that hires factories to rub the real part numbers off and laser the fake part numbers on it. If you have concrete proof that a certain seller has made more than that amount of money from those rubbed chips, post your proof here and I believe our fine Chinese members will be calling the cops on them for you, and both the seller and the factories doing the job will be on the hook for jail time.Quote from: techman-001 on April 29, 2021, 08:38:13 amSince those fake part numbers are lasered on after the rub, wiping the top of the chip with an organic solvent like tetrachloromethane will dissolve the fake part number layer and expose the rubbed chip surface itself, a much faster check than that software. I have caught not only fake MCU, but also fake op amp chips and fake power supply chips that way. Now I have the habit of rubbing all Taobao-sourced chips to detect fakes, and Taobao do accept this as a proof when reporting fake chips and will immediately award me a full refund and strike the seller.Once again, the internal register layouts and chip ID are not protectable by any law. One can always claim interoperability which is protected under anti-trust law (which we also have and we just struck Alibaba for ~US$3B anti-trust fine, and that is exactly the law that permitted Compaq and other IBM-compatible PC makers to exist alongside IBM.) As of STM32F103, since all its internal IP came from either ARM, Synopsys or lifted from the STM8 line that has its patents long expired, it is entirely legal for a Chinese company to buy those ARM and Synopsys IP and reimplement those STM8 ones through clean-room techniques, as long as they don't put the STM32 name or logo on it.

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 12:00:14 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 29, 2021, 06:50:23 amI don't want to offend anyone but this probably is becausemost chinese people don't know how to write softwarein general Chinese people are not known for their software skills.They know how to build cheap hardware which works (but that too is based on what software such as Synopsys spit out), but they seem to knownext to nothingvery little about software. For example, it seems like every week or so another chinese SBC is released without good software / linux support.

author: enz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 12:22:40 pm
content: Guys, please.Is there a way that we can avoid such generalizations?This thread certainly went a route which I am not used to in this forum, and i am here for a long time.I am a frequent reader but seldom poster. But I had to comment on this thread now.This forum was normally a place where discussions were done (mostly) in a respectfull way, pleas keep it that way.MartinEdit: Citation removed, because it was misleading

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 01:21:20 pm
content: Why are you citing my post if two people just wanted to shoot each other?I probably should have said that "in general Chinese people are not known for their software skills" or something. At least they are not presenting it to the world.

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 01:34:10 pm
content: QuoteThere is a reason why Raspberry Pi is more popular than any other SBC and the reason is not hardware.You can protect your hardware as much as you want if no one is able to use it because no f***s were given about software (at least that's my opinion as a software guy).I just read this comment the other day on cnx-software.com where one guy mentioned that MediaTek is mainlining their SoCs because they want to get into Google Chromebooks.I don't know if this is true but it makes sense to support your hardware with good software if you want other people to buy it.Quote from: blueskull on April 29, 2021, 01:29:37 pmWhich would be a bummer. Thanks for clarifying.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 04:05:11 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 29, 2021, 08:56:26 amI doubt you can find M7 core with low count pins, perhaps Maxim can do something laterQuote from: technix on April 29, 2021, 08:56:26 amIf smaller project, I would very liked endup with GD32E50xthan AT32F403AUnfortunately, nothing yet available comparable on RISC-V, just GD32VF103

author: enz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 05:00:16 pm
content: Quote from: soFPG on April 29, 2021, 01:21:20 pmI didn't want to blame you for the way this threat went, that's why I didn't put your user name to the citation.My post was targeted towards other contestants, but I admit that was not clear.It was just the final comment which triggerd me to post my opinion, so I used the quote just as an example, maybe not the best one.Since you changed the wording of your post I removed the citation because it doesn't make sense anymore.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 01:35:09 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on April 29, 2021, 04:05:11 pmThere are now two ESP32s announced that are purely RISC-V, along with the earlier one with the main core still xtensa plus a low power RISC-V core.Renesas is getting into RISC-V, and announced partnerships with Andes six months ago and SiFive this month.ST Microelectronics has been advertising for a senior RISC-V core designer.Of course anyone who is just starting now is not going to have chips for retail sale for 12 to 24 months.I think the first ESP32s have already come through. There is also the similar BL602 from Bouffalo Lab which is already available.On another level, the Allwinner D1 is already in mass-production. I heard 5 million chips in the first batch. It's aimed at around the ARM A7, A35, A53 point in the market. A few months ago Sipeed and Pine64 announced plans for Linux SBCs using it at $12.50 and "under $10" price points. They are still planning to have SBCs soon, but the component pricing and supply situation might not let them hit those prices right now. That's a 1 GHz single core RV64 chip with vector unit. I think boards at that price level would probably have 256 MB of RAM.For about the last week I've had ssh access to Allwiner's EVB for the chip, one at RVboards and starting yesterday one at Sipeed. Before the ssh access I was able for a few days to send test binaries to a Sipeed engineer and he was running them for me. At the start Sipeed didn't know whether Allwinner had paid Alibaba/T-Head for the vector unit option, as while they have a couple of boards from Allwinner they don't have the datasheet yet.My early test programs proved that the D1 does in fact have a vector unit with 32 registers of 128 bits each, and ALUs handling 8, 16, and 32 bit integers and 32 bit FP.With the way the RISC-V Vector ISA works, if you don't need 32 variables in your vector loop then you can instead reconfigure it to 16 registers of 256 bits each, or 8 registers of 512 bits each, or 4 registers of 1024 bits each. The memory bus and ALU are still only 128 bits wide, but you can keep them busier as the instruction fetch and scalar bookkeeping become proportionally less.Unfortunately as the V extension 1.0 has not been frozen and ratified yet and yet this is a real chip already existing, it implements a draft version (0.7.1 from June 2019) of the vector spec. There are many many incompatibilities between draft 0.7.1 and the current draft 0.10 in both instruction mnemonics, semantics, and binary encodings.However I have confirmed that at least memcpy() can be coded to be binary compatible (and maximally efficient) between 0.7.1 and what should become 1.0 later this northern summer. I'll shortly be checking other byte-oriented code such as strlen(), strcpy() etc. Anything using 16 or 32 bit elements is for sure not binary compatible as the format of the VTYPE CSR (and the type in the VSETVL{I} instructions) has changed.I'm actually hoping to persuade people to change that back, as while the new format is tidier and there is no promise of backwards compatibility before 1.0 it's a pretty trivial thing.Despite the incompatibility in details, the overall structure of assembly language code in 0.7.1 is the same and it's usually pretty trivial to convert code from one to the other. It's also an awesome Vector ISA. Much much better than using MMX, SSE, AVX, AVX512. Similar to ARM SVE, but normal people won't have access to any SVE chips for ... another 12 months at least?I did tests of the standard glibc memcpy and strcpy vs vector versions:http://hoult.org/d1_memcpy.txthttp://hoult.org/d1_strcpy.txtVectorised memcpy is 2x faster than the standard glibc one at small sizes, rising to near 4x at 64 bytes size, and staying near 2x until the copy is larger than L1 cache.It's also 24 bytes of code instead of 622 bytes.ARM and x86 systems are of course using AVX or NEON in their memcpy implementations. Those are fast, but they still take a *lot* of code to deal with alignment and sizes that are not a multiple of the vector register size.The RISC-V Vector code handles all the corner cases within that 24 byte function. (40 bytes for strcpy)If anyone would like to try out a D1 Eval Board, Sipeed and RVboards are offering ssh logins:https://twitter.com/cpswang/status/1385112512329175041https://twitter.com/SipeedIO/status/1387608606757978116Sipeed perhaps rather foolishly simply published the password in that tweet, so there has been some problem with vandals. Which is why I'm mostly using the other one myself.RISC-V International has today offered to send free boards to interested early adopters. I'm not sure exactly how they are deciding who is qualified, but here's the info:https://www.hackster.io/news/risc-v-international-offers-academics-individuals-free-development-boards-with-up-to-16gb-of-ram-e46c7b15b4achttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1xKtGTKA3gsGxx1MjLgupYdeoMf5XtDxnOgKYjQyJDk52ig/viewform

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 01:50:26 am
content: Quote from: technix on April 29, 2021, 09:19:09 amThe first wave of IBM-PC clones were illegal. Here in New Zealand a PC-clone company called Exzel (?) were wiped out once IBM came after them and I'm sure there were some cases in the USA also.It is legal to copy the hardware, but the BIOS code is copyrighted.It wasn't until Phoenix clean-room reimplemented the BIOS -- one set of engineers documented what the IBM BIOS actually did, including bugs, and another set wrote bug-compatible code -- that IBM couldn't stop them. (COMPAQ earlier did the same thing, but only for their own use)This is the main reason there were never any legal Mac clones. The IBM PC BIOS was 2k in size and rather badly written. The Mac ROM was 64k and written and rewritten to get it that small by very clever people such as Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw was a work of genius, and at least one essential part, the Region Manager (responsible for representing arbitrary 2D shapes and clipping drawing to them and manipulating them with efficient union, difference etc operations), was patented.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 03:09:26 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 30, 2021, 01:50:26 amThat is why Chinese companies can make STM32 compatible products with its entire pinout, register layout and ID codes identical, and ST can do nothing with it unless they have still valid patents on some of the peripherals. Sadly for STM32F103 since all IP on that chip is either bought from a third party or lifted from the now patent-free STM8, there is no valid patent at all for them to base a suit on. The only thing ST can claim is the copyright on the built-in bootloader ROM, which is just way too easy to circumnavigate especially since those Chinese companies have zero willingness to keep the bootloader compatible and just rewrote it. This is likely also why you don't see code-compatible STM32F4 clones, as that chip has at least a redesigned GPIO controller that may be under patents, and no Chinese company will run the risk of being caught in a patent suit on that.Just think ST being IBM, GD and CKS being Compaq, and Artery being that company that delivers PC compatibles with Phoenix BIOS and an NEC V20 in it. They run the exactly same code and have exactly the same external peripheral support. They bought the same components from the same external company (Intel for CPU and motherboard chips in IBM compatibles, versus ARM/Synopsys for CPU/USB IP in STM32 compatibles,) the compatible system makers reimplemented everything else (those custom IBM chips in PC versus that Faraday chip for IBM clones, versus reimplemented STM8 IP found in Chinese chips,) and there are also the brave ones that try to make improvements without breaking compatibility (the NEC V20 in a PC comaptible, versus the 240MHz Cortex-M4F in Artery chips)As of the GD RISC-V chips, basically someone fitted an 65C816 onto an PC motherboard with an adapter.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 06:09:30 am
content: Should GD provided better software support, I would actually prefer GD32F103 over STM32F103, at least simply for the fact that it is using the Cortex-M3 r2p1 core instead of r1p1, which means there are some bugfixes and Cortex-M4 backported features.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 08:32:23 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 30, 2021, 01:35:09 amThat's right, ESP32-C3 ES already available to a generic public.Quote from: brucehoult on April 30, 2021, 01:35:09 amReally? Did I miss something?I cannot find D1 availability yet in the product portfolio, only announced in News dated 15th of April without mentioned a chip release date...https://www.allwinnertech.com/index.php?c=news&a=index&id=289re: CPUI'm not sure why most offers pre-build (BeagleV, HiFive etc) options only compare to PolarFire where you can buy either their dev board or off-shelve chips. The latest allows DIY in house...Hopefully D1 will change a game.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 09:52:29 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on April 30, 2021, 08:32:23 amI mean it's going through TSMC right now, not that it's already in Mouser.At the moment they have some initial chips and are distributing EVBs. I gave URLs where RVboards and Sipeed offered ssh access to one (which I've taken up, from both). I'm on a short list of a dozen people Sipeed will send EVBs to once they have some more. Allwinner has respun the board because only up to 512 MB RAM was working and they want to send them out to developers with more, so it's going to be a couple of weeks more.I think Sipeed and Pine64 and embedded users will suck up the entire chip supply this year, and they'll be available at retail only in 2022.QuoteNot quite sure what you're getting at there. PolarFire SoC is 6 or 9 months ahead in ramping up manufacturing so you can get both chips and boards. But the last time I checked you could still only get the 500k LE version.StarFive 7110 (4x SiFive U74) should be interesting too. AntMicro announced a module using it today, as well the the already known BeagleV (which I have a beta version of).https://antmicro.com/blog/2021/04/arv-som-announcement/The 7110 is not taped out yet, as they're waiting for feedback from the 300 beta BeagleVs they've distributed with the dual core no GPU 7100. [no GPU, but it does have HDMI output using the DSP (?) to drive it. I haven't tried that, I'm just using SSH to it via ethernet]

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 09:55:28 am
content: I also saw a weird claim today that the D1 and T1033 (dual-core Cortex-A7) are actually the same chip and either the RISC-V part of the ARM part is hidden or disabled depending.I have *no* idea if there's anything to that.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 12:15:21 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 29, 2021, 07:48:19 amBlueskull will not bother us again.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 03:51:16 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 30, 2021, 09:55:28 amWell it makes sense if they are hedging bets - should one of the two CPU options fail the silicon can still be sold somehow.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 04:20:55 pm
content: Quote from: soFPG on April 29, 2021, 12:00:14 pmChinese progammers do have some of the best coding skills in the world, but you won't see them in the embedded world because...Quote from: soFPG on April 29, 2021, 12:00:14 pm... software engineering and electronics engineering are considered two strictly separate areas of study, so those excellent coders have zero clue what a microcontroller is and usually works for Tencent or Alibaba which have barely any real interest in IoT other than ways to further spy on the general populace.Also here in the Chinese education system computer science and programming are lumped together with math and theoretical physics - in fact most of the older professors in computer science have a background in pure mathematics; meanwhile electronics engineering is lumped with electrical engineering and mechanical engineering where programming is simply ignored. The only exception AFAIK is Lanzhou University which lacked a separate computer science program and placed that under electronics engineering department.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 04:22:31 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 30, 2021, 09:55:28 amThere seem to be several MCUs with both an ARM and a RISC/V core. The core is a small percentage of an MCU die, so that makes a lot of sense. For dies where the cores are a bigger percentage of the total area it seems less likely. How much effort was put into making the RISC/V core designs bus compatible with ARM, so they could be swapped out easily?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 04:27:53 pm
content: Quote from: soFPG on April 29, 2021, 12:00:14 pmChinese companies are no different to western companies in this regard. Look at the mess most MCU vendors make of their supporting software. Try talking to some people who develop things like drivers to support new ICs. The IC can only succeed as part of a complete package, but few vendors want to assign priority developing a really polished driver that lets the silicon shine. The only time the driver developer is held in high regard is when the silicon turns out to have a nasty bug, and everyone looks to the driver developer for a quick workaround.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2021, 03:54:50 am
content: Quote from: coppice on April 30, 2021, 04:22:31 pmWell you can just convert whatever bus interface RISC-V uses into AXI4 and it will work in an existing AXI bus matrix. While ARM owns AXI4, AFAIK that license is super cheap.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2021, 08:13:07 am
content: Quote from: technix on May 01, 2021, 03:54:50 amI think probably every RISC-V core that is actually used anywhere supports AXI for talking to peripherals.AMBA (which includes AXI-3 and AXI-4) requires a license but it's zero cost. The only important restriction is that you're not allowed to include a CPU core that is code-compatible with an ARM instruction set unless you have separately licensed that.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2021, 05:50:27 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 01, 2021, 08:13:07 amIf that is the case, then I would assume there would be zero incentive not to create RISC-V based cores that uses AXI and AHB as the bus interface, since that would mean that existing AXI and AHB IP would work immediately.Just wondering whether one can create a chip using multiple different architectures of CPU cores simultaneously... RISC-V have AXI version, obviously Cortex-A speaks AXI. And AFAIK Loongson has a MIPS-compatible core that is licensable and speaks AXI. What if we have a quad-core RV64G, a quad-core Cortex-A53 and a quad-core Loongson GS464 MIPS64 core complexes all on the same bus on the same chip, and somehow all of them can be powered on at the same time...?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2021, 11:02:28 pm
content: Quote from: technix on May 02, 2021, 05:50:27 pmSure, why not? It's no different to having 12 cores of the same type.Espressif already have an ESP chip with one xtensa core and one RISC-V core on the same bus. NXP have a chip with two small cores (one each ARM M0+ and RISC-V) and two bigger cores (one each M4F and RISC-V).

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 02:56:58 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 02, 2021, 11:02:28 pmThe problem is, how do the software juggle this mess of having 4 cores each using a different instruction set?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 04:53:46 am
content: Hopefully they have different RESET vectors :-)

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 05:52:33 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 03, 2021, 04:53:46 amAt least ARM and RISC-V supports relocatable RESET vectors but all of them would power up with RESET vectors at address zero.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 05:54:19 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 30, 2021, 12:15:21 pmThat is truly sad when one of the most qualified EE's here gets treated like this by other members.I can only hope you will reconsider any permanent ban.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 05:26:42 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on May 03, 2021, 05:54:19 amI can only hope that such treatment don't fundamentally came from the flag he is flying, especially in this time when international geopolitical tensions are at its maximum, and our field of profession is directly impacted and straight up named in a few official documents.Quote from: tautech on May 03, 2021, 05:54:19 amIt appeared to me that some other members here also acted less than rational here, yet they are allowed to walk away with just a slap on the wrist...And on the topic of PC, someone's PC is someone else's illegal speech punishable up to death. So just be aware of that.

author: tunk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2021, 07:05:18 pm
content: QuoteI cannot help think the same - or were the others banned as well?

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2021, 01:06:16 am
content: Quote from: tunk on May 03, 2021, 07:05:18 pmApparently not.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 04, 2021, 02:33:50 am
content: Quote from: tunk on May 03, 2021, 07:05:18 pmHe had been baned before and has a history ofyearsof provacations and reports from users, I was not going to allow this to continue.Not to mention that one of his last posts was an admission that he directly targetted myself and the forum and reported me to forum advertisers in order to get their ads pulled.Now please get this thread back on topic or it gets locked.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2021, 09:58:26 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 04, 2021, 02:33:50 amHe also had years of being provoked by same rather unsavoury characters on this forum.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2021, 11:22:35 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on May 04, 2021, 09:58:26 pmAnd despite politics not expressly allowed on the forum it flies under the radar when attacks on any country should be stomped on, factual or not.If Dave was a generation older he would have seen the same trash talk of Japan in the 60's and 70's yet he jumps on members from the fastest growing nation we are ever likely to see in our lifetimes.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 05, 2021, 12:37:15 am
content: Quote from: tautech on May 04, 2021, 11:22:35 pmFFS Tautech, just stop it.I asked nicely to get this thread back on topic.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 05, 2021, 01:09:43 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 05, 2021, 12:55:47 amIt will get locked if people don't stop it. That includes this post, there is no need to say "don't lock this thread", just don't say anyting at all and simply post on-topic content or nothing at all.I know that ironically I'm doing the same thing, but I'm trying to explain the best approach to say nothing at all and simply make on-topic posts.This is now the 5th off-topic post since I asked people to keep it on topic, and I deleted one yet people still didn't get it

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2021, 01:39:14 am
content: NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator EEVblog for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.An optional additional explanation is:

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 05, 2021, 02:12:09 am
content: I will keep deleting every off-topic post in this thread until either people leanr, or it's filled and completely ruined with "post removed messages"

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2021, 03:02:22 am
content: I'm gonna leave one message as the guy that got the first post deletion here:PLEASE DISCUSS THE GD CHIPS IN ITS VANILLA FORM(or any other products from any brand, country or source)ON ITS OWN MERITS ONLY.Comparing and contrasting with competitor parts is part of discussion on its own merits, but talking about the place of origin or the work conditions of the engineers created it is not. Chip remarking is not in the scope of this thread although GD is a common victim of this.