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name: Openness

---- #title ----

The Power of Openness

by Andreas Olofsson

---- #history ---- background-image: /images/epiphany_array.jpg

Adapteva History

  • 2008: Semiconductor company founded in Lexington, MA
  • 2010: 16-core 65nm processor (25GFLOPS/W)
  • 2011: 64-core 28nm processor (50GFLOPS/W)
  • Accomplished with 3 engineers and $5M

But it wasn't enough!

---- #challenges ---- background-image: /images/epiphanyIV.jpg

Startup Challenges

  • Skepticism: "If it was possible, Intel would have done it"
  • Competition: David vs Goliath and best out of 7!
  • Amdahl: Not everything can be improved by 10-100x
  • Leverage: When you are small, EVERYTHING costs $$
  • Time: Engagement mismatch. Weeks, months, years.

---- #R&D chart ---- background-image: /images/epiphany_wirebond.jpg

$2B+ of parallel architecture R&D
Achronix Brightscale Cradle Mathstar Sandbridge
Adapteva Calxeda C-Switch Mobileye Silicon Sp.
Ambric Chameleon ElementCXI Monarch Stream Proc
Asocs Clearspeed Greenarrays Octasic Stretch
Aspex Cognivue Icera Picochip Tilera
Axis Semi Coherent L. Intellasys Plurality Transputer
BOPS CELL IP-flex PACT XMOS
Boston C. CPUTech Larrabee Quicksilver Zilabs

---- #light bulb ---- background-image: /images/lightbulb.jpg

My 2012 "Epiphany"

  1. Pricing and paranoia was killing us!
  2. Openness is the "secret" to building platforms
  3. Follow the leaders:
    -Arduino & Raspberry Pi --> low price breeds adoption
    -Kickstarter --> capital transparency
    -Linux --> open collaboration leadership
    -ARM --> importance of strong corporate partners

---- #parallella ---- background-image: /images/parallella_front_slant.png

Kickstarting Parallel Computing

  • Parallella: "The $99 supercomputer"
  • 18 CPU cores on a credit card and @ 5W
  • Democratizes access to parallel computing
  • $898K raised on Kickstarter in Oct 2012
  • Open source and open access
  • Now generally available at Amazon & Digi-Key

---- #openness chart ---- background-image: /images/parallella_stack.jpg

Openness: Before & After

Metric Before After Boost
Site traffic 20 1,000 50x
Twitter Followers 20 1,000 50x
Universities 1 200 200x
Publications 2 30* 15x
Customers 5 10,000 2000x
Yearly Sales $45K $1.8M 40x

---- #hurdles ---- background-image: /images/parallella_slant.jpg

Hurdles to Make Adoption

Skill & Interest Rock Star Researcher Maker Consumer
Board design Yes No No No
Software plumbing Yes No No No
System administration Yes No Yes No
Soldering, assembly Yes No Yes No
Building application Yes Yes Yes No
RTFM Yes Yes Yes ?
Total Reach 10 10K 10M 1B

---- #lessons ---- background-image: /images/e64.jpg

Challenges remaining

  • Parallel programming productivity
  • Status Quo Resistance
  • US manufacturing costs

"The Whole 'Parallel Computing Is The Future' Is A Bunch Of Crock." --Linus Torvalds

---- #conclusions ---- background-image: /images/chips_tux.jpg

Conclusions

  • Adapteva prospering with unprecedented transparency
  • Openness is fundamental to modern collaboration
  • "Linux like" movement is happening in hardware

"There is plenty of room at the bottom" --Richard Feynman