[Cryptech Tech] FuseSoC, sdb and Cryptech

[Olof Kindgren]

Hi guys,

I stumbled across the Cryptech project a few weeks ago and was very
happy to see another high-profile Open Source FPGA project. I've been
involved with the OpenRISC project for about five years now and been
trying to increase collaboration between different hardware projects.
For the last few years, I've been mainly working on a RTL code package
manager/build system called FuseSoC that is starting to get widely
used now, so the first thing I did after seeing cryptech was of course
to add core description files for the cryptech IP cores, so that they
can be used easily by other projects. I've put up a repo at
https://github.com/olofk/cryptech-cores with basic instructions if you
want to take a look.

Another thing I saw by skimming through the mail archive was your
plans for self-descriptive cores
(https://lists.cryptech.is/archives/tech/2015-June/002008.html). I
really recommend that you take a look at the work done on SDB
(Self-describing bus) by Alessandro Rubini and others at OHWR, CERN.
This looks like the exact same problem you're trying to solve and they
have come quite far even though SDB hasn't really caught on outside of
CERN yet. I've been planning to add support for the OpenRISC
ecosystem, but other things has come between.

Oh well. Too many words already. Cryptech looks like a great project.
Looking forward to learn more

Cheers,
Olof Kindgren