Re: Convert btrfs software code to ASIC

[Le Nguyen Tran <lntran.de@gmail.com>]

Hi Nugraha,

Thank you so much for your information. Frankly speaking, no one can
confirm a new start-up idea works or not. The probability of failure
is always high. However, the benefit if it works is also very high.

I do not plan to exactly replicate the C source code. There are always
some techniques in ASIC design to implement which are not the same as
in software (less flexible but faster).

The main advantages of my proposed chip are:
- Very high performance: Performance of ASIC chip is normally more
than 10x higher than performance of processors because processor run
only 1-4 instructions sequentially. That is very suitable for server
when there are many requests from users.
- Low-cost: In side the chip, we can customized for our function only.
In my plan, we do not need cache (which covers a very large area), and
we can use low cost technology 0.18um.
- Low-power: Processors run instructions sequentially and access
memory ( or cache). As a result, they consume much more power than
ASIC chip (also can be 10x higher).

Actually ARM processors like mediatek cannot be comparable with ASIC
chip. However, as I mentioned, it is just my draft idea. I still to
work more to verify my idea.

Thanks.

Nguyen.

On 5/19/14, Fajar A. Nugraha <list@fajar.net> wrote:
> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Le Nguyen Tran <lntran.de@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am Nguyen. I am not a software development engineer but an IC (chip)
>> development engineer. I have a plan to develop an IC controller for
>> Network Attached Storage (NAS). The main idea is converting software
>> code into hardware implementation. Because the chip is customized for
>> NAS, its performance is high, and its cost is lower than using micro
>> processor like Atom or Xeon (for servers).
>>
>> I plan to use btrfs as the file system specification for my NAS. The
>> main point is that I need to understand the btrfs sofware code in
>> order to covert them into hardware implementation. I am wandering if
>> any of you can help me. If we can make the chip in a good shape, we
>> can start up a company and have our own business.
>
> I'm not sure if that's a good idea.
>
> AFAIK btrfs depends a lot on other linux subsystems (e.g. vfs, block,
> etc). Rather than converting/reimplementing everything, if your aim is
> lower cost, you might have easier time using something like a mediatek
> SOC (the ones used on smartphones) and run a custom-built linux with
> btrfs support on it.
>
> For documentation,
> https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page#Developer_documentation
> is probably the best place to start
>
> --
> Fajar
>