
Darpa Plans a Major Remake of U.S. Electronics - rch
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/darpas-planning-a-major-remake-of-us-electronics-pay-attention.html
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iamleppert
From the article: "It’s pretty rare to go to GitHub, find high-quality
hardware blocks that are available, and have the verification tools and
everything you would need to trust that, even though that block has been
altered by many different designers, it is in a state that is useable for your
design."

And so they are giving money to the likes of Intel, Nvidia, Synopsis, Xilinx?
The reason why there is very little open source hardware is because it isn't
in those company's interests.

I won't hold my breath, I think this is just government appropriations and a
lot of self-congratulating kick-off conferences that won't amount to anything
useful. We're more likely to get open hardware the same way it always has
started -- from the community, not from corporations. They will only adopt it
when they have no other choice.

~~~
nine_k
Once IBM constructed a personal computer. But, instead of patenting everything
about it, they decided to open the architecture, so that extension cards and
entire clones could be made.

In a few years, IBM PC and its clones ate the market, and the resulting
architecture kept eating it for like 20 years, pushing away both dedicated
game machines, microcontrollers, and ultra-powerful servers. Only the advent
of the smartphone slowed it down.

I'd like to notice that this was not a grassroots community effort; this was a
shrewd business strategy ("it's better to own 10% of a $1B market than 90% of
a $20M market"), and for-profit companies, working for the the benefit of
themselves and their customers.

Not that community efforts are futile; they gave us [a long list of great
things follows]. But the power of market forces, if harnessed right, should
not be under-estimated.

~~~
jws
_…so that extension cards and entire clones could be made._

IBM had no intention of allowing clones. They relied on their proprietary BIOS
to give them control of the product even though they were licensing an OS from
another party. This failed when the clean room reimplementations of IBM’s BIOS
withstood IBM’s legal challenges and clones were born. IBM attempted to regain
control of the platform by creating their own OS, OS/2, but ultimately failed
and was driven from the market.

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blueintegral
This is really exciting. I've thought about building a datapath on an FPGA
that uses partial reconfiguration to synthesize new hardware blocks based on
the math being doing at a particular instant, and it sounds like DARPA wants
to do that on steroids. Server CPUs coupled with FPGAs are already being used
for a lot of interesting things and I think it makes a lot of sense to
integrate together even tighter. I'm also really happy to hear that they're
funding new EDA software that is actually smart. The best we have right now is
some whitelist based rule checking for schematics and layout. I want full
simulation, a perfect, proven parts library with symbols, footprints, 3D
models, non-ideal SPICE models, and a thermal model for every part in
existence, smart rule checking that looks not only for things like unconnected
nets, but logic level mismatches and clock edges that are too fast.

Little pieces of this exist already, but in my opinion, software for creating
hardware is way behind software for creating software.

------
galeforcewinds
Quite interesting is the bit about hiring the "former lead of GNU Radio" who
had experienced pain in getting closed/proprietary hardware things to be
useful. I wonder if this will lead to more open platforms. If for no other
reason, that bit makes the article worth reading.

~~~
bsder
> Quite interesting is the bit about hiring the "former lead of GNU Radio" who
> had experienced pain in getting closed/proprietary hardware things to be
> useful. I wonder if this will lead to more open platforms. If for no other
> reason, that bit makes the article worth reading.

This makes me more worried, not less.

The reason why you couldn't repurpose those things targeted at "specific
technologies" is that they were _engineered for purpose_.

You don't want a general "radio decoder". You want a 4G modem. You don't wan't
a wideband ADC--you want low power for battery usage so you want to narrow the
bandwidth as much as possible. You are willing to give up generality in order
to get a couple more dB in order to increase your range by another couple
miles, etc.

The problem is that it is so expensive to do your own chip that everybody
tries to shoehorn their solution into something that exists in volume but
really isn't quite right simply to avoid that expense.

If you want to fix electronics, find a way to make VLSI fabrication cost $500
and have a 5 day turnaround.

~~~
Animats
_You don 't want a general "radio decoder". You want a 4G modem._

That's consumer products. DoD wants generality even if it costs more.

The electronics industry ignores what DoD wants because DoD won't buy a
million parts a month. That's been going on for a long time. It really upset
some USAF generals in the 1980s; they were used to driving the industry, not
following it. It's gotten worse since, because the center of the electronics
industry has moved to Asia.

This project is a niche thing for military short-run production. That's fine.
There may be commercial spinoffs. But it's aimed at DoD's needs.

~~~
mhneu
Why does DoD want generality?

~~~
moftz
It's cheaper for contractors to slap together a bunch of COTS stuff and get
good functionality for a "low price" versus building the perfect system from
all-in-one designs. The manufacturers aren't going to make military spec all-
in-one components because the military isn't buying that much compared to the
commercial market so the manufacturers aren't going to invest the time and
money into something that isn't going to sell volume. Even if they would make
these parts, they are going to cost a lot more than what it would cost to
design a slightly more complex, less integrated system. Everyone is better off
with more general parts. More components in a system also allow the designer
to swap portions out for newer designs as time goes on where as an all-in-one
design is going to require a lot of NRE to update.

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analognoise
This is the same project that didn't give any funding to Clifford Wolf (of
YOSYS fame) so they could give it to ADI, TI, Xilinx, Cadence and Synopsys,
etc.

I expect nothing to come of this. With the fox watching the hen house, there
will be no change.

~~~
analognoise
[https://twitter.com/ico_TC/status/1012766234784366593?s=01](https://twitter.com/ico_TC/status/1012766234784366593?s=01)

For reference.

------
robotkdick
Originally known as ARPA, Advanced Research Projects Agency, the agency helped
create the internet: _In 1973, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and
technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds. The objective
was to develop communication protocols which would allow networked computers
to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was
called the Internetting project and the system of networks which emerged from
the research was known as the “Internet.” The system of protocols which was
developed over the course of this research effort became known as the TCP /IP
Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP)._ Source:
www.internetsociety.org

The motivations for this new initiative could be numerous, including a step
back toward the ARPA days, a way to outdo the Chinese in defense applications,
and/or a way to make a political claim for the next election.

I'd be curious to hear what more informed people think the motivation might
be. Regardless, it seems to be a positive step towards electronics innovation.

~~~
adventured
One would expect the competition between the US and China to get ferocious
over the next 20 years. The US hasn't had a serious direct competitor across
the board (military + economic + political) in 70 years. My personal opinion
as an American, is that the US has gotten lackadaisical about its formerly
overwhelming superpower position, its focus, and the need to compete at a high
level. That isn't surprising of course, one would almost expect that to always
occur, and China has come on extremely fast. Hopefully China's rapid rise
forces a reawakening of an older can-do spirit, across all spheres of US life
(perhaps most especially in regards to the invaluable contributions a better
functioning government can bring, as in the past). If not, then China will de
facto rule Asia and half of Europe.

~~~
forapurpose
That assumes the competition is inevitable. Hopefully, China can become a
democracy, set free its people, and then the competition will be no more
ferocious than the U.S.'s with Europe, Japan, India, Brazil, or any other
democracy. The 'competition' is a massive waste of money and possibly of blood
that benefits very few people at the expense of billions of others. Compare
the competition to the relationships among democracies; what is gained by it?

~~~
User23
China is 6000 years old and it had never been anything even remotely
resembling a democracy. It’s going to remain a bureaucratic autocracy just as
it always has been. And that’s fine, it’s worked very well for the Han.

~~~
my_first_acct
Just a reminder that Taiwan, a country deeply steeped in traditional Chinese
culture, is a functioning multi-party democracy.

Perhaps Mainland China is too big, or too poor, to become a stable democracy
at this time, but Chinese culture should not by itself be a reason for China
to remain a "bureaucratic autocracy".

~~~
YorkshireSeason
And that's why the PRC (= Mainland) is trying everything it can to take over
Taiwan, and subvert / destroy this democracy. After all the Chinese Communist
Party's convenient narrative that justifies it's 'eternal' rule is just this,
that the Chinese people neither want, nor need multi-party democracy.

(See also: Iran vs Saudi-Arabia. The former -- despite all the imperfections
of its current mode of government -- is a living proof that Muslims don't need
the iron fist of a hereditory ruling family.)

------
forapurpose
Why is DARPA investing in general purpose open source technology? I'd expect
the U.S. military to seek competitive advantages, but this tech could be used
by China, Russia, and Iran as easily as by the U.S. Perhaps this tech suits
the U.S.'s needs better than the needs of its competitors?

DARPA has funded general purpose open source tech previously, but for the
reasons above I haven't understood why. I'm glad to have the technology, I
just don't grasp their motives.

~~~
azinman2
Just because it's under the military doesn't mean it's only for military
purposes. They want civilian technology to advance so that they can then
leverage it, while also building businesses within the US to strength it
economically.

------
molteanu
Honest question: How is this not basically a subsidy for the electronics
sector? The news I'm hearing from the US all the time is how China, for
example, is subsidizing it's production sector and that that creates unfair
market competition. From Harvard Business Review, for example: "[...] its
overarching policy of aggressively subsidizing targeted industries in order to
dominate global markets" and "Government subsidies to produce technologically
advanced products and undercut foreign manufacturers have buttressed China’s
trade prowess" [1]

The same can be said for the other technologies that were first financed by
the government and then taken over by the private sector [2]

[1] [https://hbr.org/2013/04/how-chinese-subsidies-
changed](https://hbr.org/2013/04/how-chinese-subsidies-changed)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUHrYJW-6MI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUHrYJW-6MI)

~~~
ggg9990
It is. If we can’t stop China from subsidizing their tech we should subsidize
our own.

~~~
pravda
The United States does plenty of subsidizing, through the "Pentagon System".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSJjlaggbK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSJjlaggbK0)

[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Cho...](http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Chom.html)

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whaaswijk
If you're interested in open source hardware, you might find the WOSET
workshop interesting. It is a new workshop on open source EDA, related to this
DARPA project. See
[http://scale.engin.brown.edu/woset/](http://scale.engin.brown.edu/woset/)

------
drivingmenuts
It's interesting but how does that square with the desire to keep China and
others from getting their hands on our designs when the bulk of our
manufacturing is done overseas?

~~~
CptFribble
> The Chisel team showed that two to three student designers can do full
> system-on-chip designs by abstraction and automation.

> One of the things we’re trading off is the ultimate efficiency of the
> design. If 1 percent of area matters because you’re making millions of
> parts, then this level of abstraction may not be the right one for you. In
> our case, we’re not as cost-driven. So, if we give away 10 percent of the
> area but maximize the capabilities of the smaller design team, that’s the
> kind of tradeoff that would work for the Defense Department, but it also
> might work for startups and other smaller players like universities.

Presumably, one of their unspoken goals is to more easily enable
advanced/secure chips to be designed and made in the USA for the military and
kept confidential.

~~~
Cyph0n
None of what you quoted mentions IC/chip fabrication. It is definitely a
problem DARPA/DoD is concerned about, but this project is not addressing it.

------
YesThatTom2
Another reminder what a failure capitalism is. I'm so tired of hearing
"markets are the best way to distribute resources" when we always see failures
like this. Capitalism can't produce "big leaps" in innovation. Never could. We
were so blind.

~~~
electrograv
Just to check: Did you type this on a system whose entire hardware and
software stack was built within some non-capitalist society, which you are
claiming is superior to capitalism?

If “capitalism has failed”, as you claim, don’t you think it’s rather ironic
that ALL the world’s most advanced technology comes from capitalist societies
then? Shouldn’t there be at least ONE modern computer system that was built
entirely without capitalism?

Open source counts as capitalist technology as well, since the vast majority
of its contributors live within mostly capitalistic societies as a whole (and
I’m not really aware of Soviet open source software).

Chinese technology, perhaps the greatest upcoming contender to the USA’s
technological dominance, is also deeply capitalist throughout its inception
(though elements of state control are deeply interwoven, the Chinese
government wisely realized the benefits of capitalism and managed to use it to
great success).

Capitalism is certainly deeply flawed, but regulated capitalism still seems to
be the best system we have so far. Constantly saying “Capitalism has failed!”
is utterly useless if you cannot propose a new system in its place that does
better. (Hint: Most systems that people popularly propose have been tried time
and time again.)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Certainly fair overall, but of course quite a lot of the technology we're
using to have this conversation spun off from the Apollo program[1]
originally...

1:
[https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/index.html](https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/index.html)

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adamnemecek
Photonics will replace electronics by that time, of hope.

