[Cryptech Core] multiple offers...

[Peter Stuge]

Павел Шатов wrote:
>>> We seem to have two offers on the table. One from bitsim (english
>>> version attached) and one from BMOCon (Joachim can perhaps talk
>>> to this company).
>>
>> I am thoroughly unimpressed by the Bitsim offer.
>
> If I remember correctly, it was back in February, when I told you, that you 
> underestimated complexity of Alpha, so you should not be surprised by these 
> prices.

It's not just the price which surprises me, but my overall impression
of the offer. They even have a clause saying that they might need to
spin a second board because this is a high-speed design, as if that
is their norm, but I don't get the impression that this would be
included in the offer. It's possible to get GHz right the first time,
and I get the impression that BMOCon are used to doing that.


> Unfortunately I don't understand Swedish, as far as I understand from your 
> translation, MBOCon's price only includes development costs.

Yep, that's right.


> Does BitSim's price include expenses required to manufacture prototypes?
> They are talking about 5(?) prototype boards in their offer. Does their
> price include components, boards and soldering?

Yes, for "5(?)" boards, whatever that means. Is that about one order
of magnitude off?


> I can say, that BitSim's offer is reasonable too. They also understand
> what they are going to do, you can tell this from the following items:
>
> "4. No VHDL-code for the FPGA, nor SW for the processors will be developed. 
> "6. Test results
> When designing the first version of the board, BitSim will try to
> design it in such a way that it will be easy to debug and to do
> simple patches."

Again implying that they will need more spins. :\

I agree that it's important to make bringup as easy as possible, and
I'm sure that BMOCon wouldn't mind adding such a clause if that's a
dealbreaker.


>> However, there is a glaring problem with both offers:
>>
>> All deliverables are completely proprietary
>
> I think, you misunderstood this.

No I don't.

> they have already purchased Cadence or Mentor license

Yes that is clear.


>> Proprietary tools mean that re-use of the deliverables is essentially
>> only possible for those who already have a license for the respective
>> tools. This significantly reduces the value of the deliverables.
>
> Peter, I don't understand, what re-use are you talking about?

Entities wanting to re-use and modify the Alpha board in their own
project.

By settling for a proprietary closed format of delivery, Cryptech
technology becomes significantly less usable for others.


> PCB source files are like closed format vector images,

There are open EDA file formats too. But the proprietary tools of
ourse do not support them, because proprietary tools lock in their
users. This lack of transparency is an important part of the
motivation for Cryptech in the first place.


> I doubt, that anyone will ever want to modify Alpha PCB sources

We can speculate about that all we want. The important point is that
when the deliverables are in a proprietary closed format, noone
without the proprietar tools *can* re-use the Alpha sources.


> so Gerbers as output are fine. Joachim included GPIO expansion 
> connector in his drawing, so end users will be able to develop
> extension boards using whatever design software they want.

Who do you think is the Cryptech user? I think it's hardware developers.


//Peter