One way to dethrone the competition might be to focus on openness:

There are also security reasons for wanting to make a processor for India. “We don’t know really whether the processor we are getting from outside is trustworthy. Is it secure?” asks Kamakoti. “Suppose I want variants of a processor, for different needs – not just strategic, even civilian needs – I have to basically rely on the processor available to me, and fit my application to that. It is something like I bought the slipper and I am cutting my feet to fit into it.”

But in the case of ARM, you _do_ know, if you manufacture it yourself. ARM licenses intellectual property, not sells chips. Once you buy a license, you can inspect it and make sure it doesn’t have the bits you don’t like.

That means I have to develop all the code from scratch anyway. the arch lic just gets me a ISA spec doc.Might as well start with another ISA that is free. But the issue is bigger. Shakti is also an exercise in using a high level HDL. We would not exist but for Bluespec, we really get a 6x to 10x productivity increase over Verilog. I also get the ability to do true formal proving of the correctness of my code. There is a reason why DARPA hose bluespec for their secure processor work.

No, an ARM license gets you the implementation of a core in source form. You are free to modify it if needed, as many licensees do.

Depends on the license.

My understanding is that you also need to license from intel if you have a chip.

I think there's a "law" that goes something like "if there's a question in the title, the answer is no"

Betteridge's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

I agree with this. I was just looking at the microcontroller market, and I can tell you that AVR is going to be around a long time (like PIC).