IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - May/June 2022 - 9

specific DSP functionalities. Example OSH
DSPs are FreeDSP and the Open Hardware DSP
Platform.
ASICs are custom-designed processors impleFigure
1. OS platforms and CE developed in our
laboratory.
different vendors (e.g., a smart pillbox or a
remotely controlled heating system).
Single-board computers (SBC) typically include
an MCU, a GPU, and different types of memories
and wireless radios (e.g., WiFi, LTE, or
Bluetooth), among other components. Many SBC
designs (e.g., those based on Raspberry Pi) are
available as OSH projects anyone can duplicate,
improve, or include them as part of more complex
projects. SBCs typically run OS operating
systems, such as specific GNU/Linux distributions,
or third-party forks, including Android in
some cases. In the near future, regulations, certifications,
and royalties applied to electronic
devices using radio communications may hamper
the emergence of fully OS SBCs. However,
the rapid reduction of their manufacturing costs
is opening the door to many SBC vendors interested
in OSH. A complete specification of some
of the most relevant SBCs and MCUs currently
available, and a comparison among them can be
found in the work by Moguel et al.7
DSPs are processors that can hardwire signalprocessing
algorithms, minimizing the software
development effort and the resources required
to invoke them. Today, some MCUs support
May/June 2022
menting a specific functionality. Today, ASICs are
highly demanded, particularly for matrix-intensive
neural networks and cryptography algorithms
(e.g., those required by bitcoin miners).
MCUs and DSPs can be the starting point for
building ASICs embedding the functionality of one
or more processors. One of the motivations for
developing ASICs is that, for any application
always performing the same functionality,
the closest MCU or DSP always contains redundant
transistors, inputs/outputs, etc. Therefore,
removing unnecessary hardware can significantly
reduce the cost of the device when produced in
large batches. As a counterpart, ASICs' design and
production is complex and only available at
specialized hardware manufacturers. Therefore,
there are not many OSH ASICs. However, some OS
initiatives such as RISC-V, which provide a modular
instruction set targeting from simple MCUs
to multicore reconfigurable ASICs, are gaining
momentum. Some manufactures are using RISC-V
to build physical MCUs and ASICs. Furthermore,
customized design is becoming widely available
thanks to manufactures like SiFive, which provides
a web tool (core designer) allowing designers
to customize their chips according to their
specific requirements.
Last but not least, FPGAs are widely used IP
cores, primarily for hardware prototyping as
they allow for specific levels of flexibility. The
first widely spread OSH FPGA was the tinyFPGA,
with several low-cost development boards available.
Xilinx, a well-known FPGA vendor, is also
offering Spartan and OSH development boards
based on their proprietary IP core. Finally, FPGAWars
is also an interesting FPGA that follows the
Arduino spirit and offers, not only OSH development
boards, but also OSS to program them.
OS NETWORKING (OSN)
The first OSN project started in 2004, when
Linksys was required to open the source code of
one of its routers to cope with the GNU license
requirements. Another milestone for OSN was
the creation, in 2012, of the Open Networking
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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - May/June 2022

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