Hi. I wonder if we will ever have a chance to buy the SoC and build the board ourselves as it is an open-hardware(despite we still do not have access to the schematics and the design files). If it is planned, when should we expect to see it in the market?
Please reply to this question, I believe many are interested in knowing the answer.
I would expect schematics etc to be available when the board ships. This is how it worked with previous boards. Perhaps because until then, we can’t be sure that the current design is the final design.
I have no idea if the FU740 will be sold separately. We never sold the FU540 separately. Keep in mind that SiFive is not a computer company or a chip company. We are an IP Core company, like ARM. If you want to buy an ARM chip, you don’t buy it from ARM, you buy it from an ARM customer. Simarly, if you want to buy a SiFive chip, you shouldn’t expect to buy it from us, you should expect to buy it from a customer of ours. Unfortunately the market isn’t quite there yet. I know that Microchip is selling the chip used in the Icicle kit which is similar to the FU540, but I seriously doubt that you can buy them one at a time. They are probably only selling to corporate customers at this time. It may be a few years before Linux capable RISC-V chips are commodity parts that you can easily purchase in small quantities.
No, you can buy the PolarFire Soc in 1-off for $340.
Datasheet
https://nz.mouser.com/datasheet/2/268/Microsemi_Microchip_PolarFire_SoC_FPGA_Product_Ove-1879322.pdf
Note that this is not just an FU540, but an FU540 embedded into a 250k element FPGA.
Also, this is a 667 MHz part, vs the lower grade 600 MHz part in the Icicle board.
They will have cheaper versions with less FPGA in future – there are part numbers for them in section 2.4 of the datasheet, with 25k, 93k, and 161k LUT versions below this 250k LUT part.
Thank you all for your replies. They made me clear about the main focus of the company.