[oc] cores wish list

["Liao Junwei" <scriabin@pacific.net.sg>]

Hi All,

Although I don't have a lot of experience (turned freelance after 1 year's
worth of work) I can roughly tell what is quite in demand. And perhaps it
should give ideas to undergraduates with too much time on their hands. :)

1) 8051 core - quite a popular microcontroller, if I may say so. In
Singapore, where I live, it's the so-called "standard" for goverment related
projects (i.e. no one wants to go into the hassle of using an 'unproven'
microcontroller).

2) Encryption acclerator core - encryption schemes like DES are quite
processor intensive. Having dedicated encryption facilities (if you can
squeeze it in) allows solutions to be operated at lower frequencies, hence
saving power. You might also add in security features, e.g. disallowing
software peeks into certain keys perhaps?

3) MP3 decompression core - I do like portable MP3 players, but they cost
way too much. If perhaps they cost US$50 or less I may consider...

4) x86 core - wow I think I can do wonders with this, but doing this from
scratch is quite daunting... perhaps something like a hardware x86 -
OpenRISC instruction translator would do the trick? I don't know how
difficult it is when AMD tried something similar. Perhaps 486 emulation
should be the first step, and Socket 7 plug in compatibility should be next?
There are lots of socket 7 boards around. Perhaps we can even think about
adding in a new "processor mode" in which OpenRISC instructions are executed
natively? I would LOVE to work on this.

I run out of ideas for the moment. I hope others will contribute to other
features. Maybe opencores should start a wishlist.