NLNet Funding Proposals submitted for the Libre RISCV Hybrid CPU/VPU/GPU

Hardware
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https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_proposals/

I am putting in a series of funding proposals, each for EUR 50,000 for different related subtasks in order to make progress with the Libre RISC-V SoC. These are:

  • a second Vulkan 3D driver, which will be a port of AMDVLK. similar to swiftshader, for the Libre RISCV SoC, except taking into account the Vectorisation, predication and custom accelerated opcodes.
  • a video acceleration initiative: with NEON assembler being up to the job of decoding 720p video on recent ARM64 processors, the idea is to design instructions that will do the job and then follow through getting the code upstream.
  • two related proposals which, in combination, will result in an actual 180nm ASIC being taped out at TSMC.
  • a formal mathematical proof of the hardware design, proving inviolate guarantees of its correctness. this because although auditing the code is possible, it is both laborious, error prone, and could be compromised. mathematical proofs may be run by anyone and are inviolate.
  • an augmentation of gcc to support the processor’s parallel and vectorisation capabilities.

The reasons why I am posting these here are:

  1. We need a European Citizen to be part of the proposal process. They do not have to be resident, they just have to be an EU Citizen. Including the UK. There is no obligation or contract.

  2. We are looking for individuals and Universities willing to receive donations directly from NLNet for the purposes of completing any of the tasks, in any of the proposals. Corporations may not be recipients of Charitable Donations, however their employees may.

  3. I would love to hear from anyone any additional ideas for funding proposals. However bear in mind the criteria, here, http://nlnet.nl/PET

We do not have long! The current round ends Oct 1st. With thanks.

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I’d help you in a heartbeat if I were a European citizen, but I’m not. Has anyone responded?

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With thanks, I have heard privately from one person.

I need one more EU Citizen, for the gcc proposal, however in addition obviously once in we need actual programmers, regardless of location. Once accepted, anyone may be the recipient if donations, for any of the subtasks.

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@lkcl I follow your project with great interest, but without being technically able to really understand what you’re doing. I just hope that it’ll succeed and reach sometimes its goal to give the world a real open soc.

That said, I wonder a bit what this “european person” stuff is about. There is no explanation in your post what this persons name is used for. If the person is not needed in any way beside her/his name then you could make up a fantasy name.

So there need to be some legal obligation for that person otherwise I suppose you wouldn’t ask.

If you’d want me to help you e.g. you’d need to make me understand what that “european person” thing really is about.

Don’t misunderstand me - I have great respect for that unbelievable project you started and I’d really like to become it true. This is not supposed to be just a “oh, I don’t trust you”-post, but the question to make people understand to give them the opportunity to help that project.

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Thank you ChriChri

Ah! Doh :slight_smile: ok, it works like this: NLNet applied for and received a EUR 5 million EU Grant, Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825310

Part of the conditions were that the donations must be of benefit to the EU in some way. In addition, NLNet sets a limit of EUR 50,000 per project per first-time submitter until such time as they have successfully completed one entire project.

Therefore, in order to meet these criteria we need at least one personfrom the EU who has not received an NLNet Grant before to be the “initial point of contact”, per application.

Now, this does not constitute a contract, nor an obligation in any way. There is an MoU (memorandum of understanding), and because there is no “payout per unit of time” (no monthly or hourly rate in other words), the donations being only sent if subtasks (milestones) are 100% complete, then even if you are a signatory on the MoU, if you do not complete any milestone, you do not receive donations, and that’s the end of the matter. No penalty, no punishment, no contractual breach, nothing.

With this kind of slightly complex “hurdles” in the way you will perhaps forgive me for not outlining them in such excruciating detail, before :slight_smile:

Edit:

NLNet is audited, independently, by a company that carries out Dutch Govt Dept audits. Whilst it’s not a “legal” obligation, it is just part of the wishes of the EU Horizon Programme. However making up fake names would definitely be fraud and would not go down well with the Audit.

There is also an independent review of the application(s) and I believe it is possible to request that names not be given out to the reviewers. These are part of the EU Grant Process and, interestingly, anyone can volunteer for it.

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Latest: David Lanzendorfer from Libre Silicon pointed out that AXI4 is patented, but worse than that, ARM has been caught refusing to license it to Huawei.

So I mumbled a bit and people came forward with the idea of starting another proposal to add streaming capability to Wishbone B4.

Cool!

The one proposal I am having difficulty getting traction on is the gcc port https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_2019_gcc/

Officially you are not supposed to post “recruitment” but this is not recruitment. Have to carefully word it.

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Decided to modify the 3D AMDVLK one to invlude MESA RADV as a candidate for conversion. This will makr life easier due to the higher level of adoption than AMDVLK.

We still need more EU Citizens! This is part of satisfying the conditions set by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme.

Do get in touch, email me luke.leighton@gmail

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Yay nice article, lots of encouraging comments for a sunday