I’m considering creating a website that would let users create their own micro for free. They could pick the core (12x, 6x, or turbo), pick the peripherals, and the amount of RAM and ROM. They could even include their own logic.

If you wanted an 8051 with 4 UARTs, each with their own interrupt vector, and 8K of internal RAM, then you could have it. You could even include a hardware debugger.

After doing this, you click the done button. Then you get a data sheet (pdf) describing the part, and a bit stream that implements the part in a FPGA. The bitstream would not be real time, as it would take a few hours to run. I’d batch them through a server, and e-mail the results.

They also get a quote for quantity pricing (>1K) for a custom ASIC. Maybe a 10K NRE and $5 to $10 pricing, depending on the volumes and design size.

I figure that only a few of the designs will ever turn into sales for me, but that is a few more than I would get otherwise. And my cost is just some CPU time on a PC. And I get free publicity, and maybe a few more standard microcontroller sales than I would have gotten otherwise.

On the down side, I could be buried in apps support from people who never bought anything. (Maybe I could get Craig to set up a special 8052 board like CHAT for utterly confused deviate users. And these would really be deviates.)

I’d appreciate feedback. Does this sound interesting? Would you ever try it? What type of FPGA should I use? (Xilinx, Altera, Actel?)