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Apollo 68080 - ASIC - How Much Would It Cost?page  1 2 

Kresimir Lukin

Posts 65
22 Aug 2017 21:04


Don't worry Vojin I will not take wrong:)
Regarding recommendations,Zadar is worth to visit


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
22 Aug 2017 21:10


Fernando Pereira wrote:
@Gunnar

Even if it was 500€, I would still buy it; I believe it would be much faster than the fastest of the high-end FGPA board, which in contrast would be much more expensive. Am I wrong?


This is why you see some very oddball posts made by me!!!!

This ASIC that we will eventually have made for us will be running at anywhere from 600 MHz up to maybe 1.8 GHz!!!! Depends what they can pay for.

And it will have 128K instruction AND 128K data cache!!!! (Probably.)

OR, just have 256 Megs of RAM INSIDE the CPU and no other RAM at all on the motherboard!!!! ZERO wait state RAM! HOW FAST WOULD THAT VAMPIRE BE?!??!?


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
22 Aug 2017 21:14


Kresimir Lukin wrote:

Don't worry Vojin I will not take wrong:)
  Regarding recommendations,Zadar is worth to visit

Yup, all nice ports and seaside resorts,
with best piece of Adriatic Sea (sorry, Italy and France)

But for Split I recommended checking the "nuke thing"
(Splits Reggae band plays Geiger-Miller funk 300kmp/h)
EXTERNAL LINK 
(we ll cut down on local jokes!)

Hope one day there`ll be mighty Vampires all around!


Daniel Sevo

Posts 299
22 Aug 2017 22:05


Its a numbers game...
The problem is that if you don't have a pile of cash to do the initial large "investment" you'd need to do something like binding pre-orders to collect the cash - and then of course the more ppl that would order the lower the price of asic/piece.

But at this point, a lot of the interested people have already bought/ordered the current vampire, so then you need ask if you really could sell another one at yet another €300 or so. (Ok Thiery the Atheist would probably buy 50 of them but still ;-)

You'd probably need to expand to the Atari ST community and beyond..

**Theoretically**, one sure way to increase sales of the 68080 chip itself would be to sell it with an "socket adapter board" as a straight 68060 replacement but I'm guessing that isn't really technically doable, so most likely not a real world solution ;-)


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
22 Aug 2017 22:42


Daniel Sevo wrote:

    You'd probably need to expand to the Atari ST community and beyond..
   

   
    Plans on 68k expansions are nice, maybe possible for Apollo
    core on long run, but not much Vampire posible beyond emulation
    and little hacks using Amiga as base.
   
    Beside ensuring more TOS compatibility, a try to natively adopt
    MacOS Classic, Linux should be made on long run.
   
    Using FPGA and SAGA resources could also made a nice multi-retro
    machine since a lot of consoles are 68k based, but that is way
    beyond team has ever mentioned.
   
    Completing M68k compatibile FPU and MMU would be a must on
    enganing most of these, so its also no-go at present moment.
 
 
Thierry Atheist wrote:

    And it will have 128K instruction AND 128K data cache!!!! (Probably.)
   
    OR, just have 256 Megs of RAM INSIDE the CPU and no other RAM at all on the motherboard!!!! ZERO wait state RAM! HOW FAST WOULD THAT VAMPIRE BE?!??!?
 

 
  Nice Atheist dreams, but I would opt just for caches, and that DDR3/5 RAM inside 080 in v5 or so ...

Not for RAM: or RAD: but for OS itself. As kind of fast booting reserved area to increase OS snappines to the max.
 
  CPU itself needs to break the 200Mhz rating, I do not acknowledge any Damn PC PR ratings (or 040,060 ...) anymore. Just its clock :-)


M Rickan

Posts 177
23 Aug 2017 02:13


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  The Vampire dances circles around any other 68K including 68060.
  And if you use AMMX then the Vampire dances also circles around all 603 / 604 PowerPC cards.

Since we're stargazing, do you have a sense of the performance difference between the Apollo in current FPGA form and what could be achieved in a typical ASIC?


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
23 Aug 2017 08:12


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:
Nice Atheist dreams, but I would opt just for caches, and that DDR3/5 RAM inside 080 in v5 or so ...
 
  CPU itself needs to break the 200Mhz rating, I do not acknowledge any Damn PC PR ratings (or 040,060 ...) anymore. Just its clock :-)
 

There is a reason that even modern x86-64 CPUs do not have very much memory inside the CPU. The process used for CPUs is not optimal to use for memory as it is too expensive. You could make it in a separate and more suitable process and bond them together inside the same package or just split them into separate ICs.
 
Regarding the actual clock frequency of the CPU, then it is just a number and quite irrelevant. What's important is the actual performance and a high clock frequency does not necessarily imply high performance (a well known example is Prescott CPUs which had horrible performance despite having the highest clock frequencies).

I'm also not convinced about the benefit of having an 68080 ASIC. Yes, it could be clocked quite a bit higher, but it would also be missing all the new developments that have happened in the mean time since you cannot simply change the design after it has been locked. This is the benefit of using FPGAs and also why many companies use FPGAs in their really expensive high-end high performance products. If they have a new product coming out every half a year, then an ASIC would pretty much be outdated by the time it was released..


Fernando Pereira

Posts 68
23 Aug 2017 08:18


Thierry Atheist wrote:

Fernando Pereira wrote:
@Gunnar
 
  Even if it was 500€, I would still buy it; I believe it would be much faster than the fastest of the high-end FGPA board, which in contrast would be much more expensive. Am I wrong?

  This is why you see some very oddball posts made by me!!!!
 
  This ASIC that we will eventually have made for us will be running at anywhere from 600 MHz up to maybe 1.8 GHz!!!! Depends what they can pay for.
 
  And it will have 128K instruction AND 128K data cache!!!! (Probably.)
 
  OR, just have 256 Megs of RAM INSIDE the CPU and no other RAM at all on the motherboard!!!! ZERO wait state RAM! HOW FAST WOULD THAT VAMPIRE BE?!??!?

I can only imagine! That would be so freaking awesome!



Gregthe Canuck

Posts 274
23 Aug 2017 08:49


While an ASIC is a cool discussion to have it is not yet practical/feasible for a number of reasons:
    - 68080 core and SAGA are still evolving
    - the upfront cost is huge
    - the volumes required to amortize that cost to something reasonable
 
Luckily the FPGA market is getting more competitive with uses for bitcoin mining and recently even AI: EXTERNAL LINK 
 
The upside for the Apollo/Vampire team is hopefully more competition in FPGAs resulting in lower prices and higher performance. Ride that wave.... or horse as Gunnar said. :)
 


Samuel Crow

Posts 424
24 Aug 2017 11:42


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Fernando Pereira wrote:

  Out of pure curiosity:
   
  If the Apollo Core 68080 would to be manufactured as ASIC, how much would it cost (considering the target market)?
 
  (Cost aimed at the consumer, not cost to manufacture it)
 

 
  20 bucks

That's a good target.  I wonder if there is a good niche market for powerful SoC machine.  I have a small laptop with a quad-core Atom processor that would be similar in performance to a 68080 ASIC.  Are there any other ideas that can be reached?  My Atom doesn't run much software and runs Windows 7 Starter.  We need more software toolkit development.


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
24 Aug 2017 12:53


Martin Soerensen wrote:

  There is a reason that even modern x86-64 CPUs do not have very much memory inside the CPU. The process used for CPUs is not optimal to use for memory as it is too expensive.

yeah for sure it's pricey, IBM now GlobalFoundries has eDRAM technology well up to 22nm, however with 14nm and smaller they have pretty much abandoned it. It involves a difficult process of creating trenches in the silicon, then a filling process to create the capacitor arrays used in the eDRAM. line shifts can easily cause poor eDRAM yield. 

Adding external DRAM to a package (MCM - Multi-Chip Module) is a pricey endeavor too, a single defect or processing mistake could lead to the entire module to be scrapped, So typically additional testing steps are added to reduce yield hits, which of course is another thing that leads to higher costs.



Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
27 Aug 2017 12:24


Daniel Sevo wrote:
 
  **Theoretically**, one sure way to increase sales of the 68080 chip itself would be to sell it with an "socket adapter board" as a straight 68060 replacement but I'm guessing that isn't really technically doable, so most likely not a real world solution ;-)

If you ask me "3DO Blaster" Style with a PCI/PCI-E card for PCs and AmigaNGs could be the highest sucessor there. And nice idea if it would be CPU and pin compatibile replacement to 060 one day. But I am not sure how many 060 boards allow it.



Mo Retro

Posts 241
27 Aug 2017 13:15


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

Daniel Sevo wrote:
 
  **Theoretically**, one sure way to increase sales of the 68080 chip itself would be to sell it with an "socket adapter board" as a straight 68060 replacement but I'm guessing that isn't really technically doable, so most likely not a real world solution ;-)
 

 
  If you ask me "3DO Blaster" Style with a PCI/PCI-E card for PCs and AmigaNGs could be the highest sucessor there. And nice idea if it would be CPU and pin compatibile replacement to 060 one day. But I am not sure how many 060 boards allow it.
 

Or an adapter to fit the 080 to an 040 or 060 socket, like the 040 to 060 adapter. But then the 080 must be available as a CPU only edition.



Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
27 Aug 2017 14:24


Mo Retro wrote:

  Or an adapter to fit the 080 to an 040 or 060 socket, like the 040 to 060 adapter. But then the 080 must be available as a CPU only edition.

Quite right, ONCE Apollo design + SAGA grow mature AND ASICs could be carved, such solutions would be nice(r) even then full sized mobo - desktop computer. Distant future, ah dreamers!

But something new design at least make as an option (no Planet Amiga, this is no news! :-)

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