It took me a while (I'm a bit slow on hardware stuff) but I think I understand now why the Mill is A Good Thing.
It can be thought of as a design abstraction layer between hardware platform developers and hardware manufacturers (with a few considerations, as mentioned in the video) which allows rapid hardware development in a way that programming languages (as opposed to assembly) allow rapid software development.
I previously thought it was just a new CPU design (like they come along every day...) but now I think they're heading in the right direction here. Rapid development cycles for hardware with a much more approachable function description language.
Need a chip that does what your old chip does but with newer crypto / media codec / random protocol feature? Load up the previous one, write the new functions in (almost) C++, sim it, test it, send it off to the fab, hardware guys apply unicorn spray and bake in a pressure cooker (or something), product. Hopefully it will work something like that.
He mentions hardware in 2 years (maybe). Is this actually on the horizon? I'm excited by the current state of the sim, but the first hardware (and proof of concept) would be great to see!
It's a substantial reduction in costs, but fab set-up costs for a given design alone are still extremely high ($millions), so it won't be something you do on a whim.
the crypto and media codec stuff are not part of the CPU, they are IP cores on the same SoC as the CPU. So to update to the new media codec and crypto, you can spin a new SoC with the same CPU as the previous one but with added IP cores. The CPU can be ARM or Mill, it won't matter, and the IP cores are exposed to the CPU as IO devices though MMIO. I don't see the big advantage for Mill for this application.
It can be thought of as a design abstraction layer between hardware platform developers and hardware manufacturers (with a few considerations, as mentioned in the video) which allows rapid hardware development in a way that programming languages (as opposed to assembly) allow rapid software development.
I previously thought it was just a new CPU design (like they come along every day...) but now I think they're heading in the right direction here. Rapid development cycles for hardware with a much more approachable function description language.
Need a chip that does what your old chip does but with newer crypto / media codec / random protocol feature? Load up the previous one, write the new functions in (almost) C++, sim it, test it, send it off to the fab, hardware guys apply unicorn spray and bake in a pressure cooker (or something), product. Hopefully it will work something like that.
He mentions hardware in 2 years (maybe). Is this actually on the horizon? I'm excited by the current state of the sim, but the first hardware (and proof of concept) would be great to see!