In the superheated world of AI and Neural Nets (NN), many of us are familiar with object recognition in images: cars, pedestrians, cats and dogs and thousands of other applications. But there’s another class of applications, also growing rapidly, around audio AI. Early generations for command recognition in infotainment systems… Read More
Artificial Intelligence
The Ups and Downs of Google Assistant Mini
On Star Trek when they asked the computer to do something, they never heard it say “Sorry, you have no photon torpedoes connected to your account”. However, this sort of thing is something that happens at my house when I forget the exact name of a specific light. How did I get here?
I was reluctant to buy a “home assistant” for all the reasons… Read More
CEVA-BX: A Hybrid DSP and Controller
I’ve noticed hybrid solutions popping up recently (I’m reminded of NXP’s crossover MCU released in 2017). These are generally a fairly clear indicator that market needs are shifting; what once could be solved with an application processor or controller or DSP or whatever, now needs two (or more) of these. In performance/power/price-sensitive… Read More
Disturbances in the AI Force
In the normal evolution of specialized hardware IP functions, initial implementations start in academic research or R&D in big semiconductor companies, motivating new ventures specializing in functions of that type, who then either build critical mass to make it as a chip or IP supplier (such as Mobileye – intially)… Read More
Let The AI Benchmark Wars Begin!
Why benchmark competition enables breakthrough innovation in AI. Two years ago I inadvertently started a war. And I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. While wars fought on the battle field of human misery and death never have winners, this “war” is different. It is a competition of human ingenuity to create new technologies … Read More
Emulation Evaluation for the Ages!
One of the more entertaining things I get to observe in the semiconductor ecosystem is competitive customer evaluations of tools and IP. Seriously, this is where the rubber meets the road no matter what the press releases say.
This time it was emulators which is one of the most interesting EDA market segments since there is no dominant… Read More
AI at the Edge
Frequent Semiwiki readers are well aware of the industry momentum behind machine learning applications. New opportunities are emerging at a rapid pace. High-level programming language semantics and compilers to capture and simulate neural network models have been developed to enhance developer productivity (link). Researchers… Read More
Embeddable FPGA Fabric on TSMC 7nm
With their current line-up of embeddable and discrete FPGA products, Achronix has made a big impact on their markets. They started with their Speedster FPGA standard products, and then essentially created a brand-new market for embeddable FPGA IP cores. They have just announced a new generation of their Speedcore embeddable… Read More
On-Chip Networks at the Bleeding Edge of ML
I wrote a while back about some of the more exotic architectures for machine learning (ML), especially for neural net (NN) training in the data center but also in some edge applications. In less hairy applications, we’re used to seeing CPU-based NNs at the low end, GPUs most commonly (and most widely known) in data centers as the workhorse… Read More
Achronix Assists Academics
In every semiconductor related field, innovation is the name of the game. Academic, non-profit and government research has been a consistent source of innovation. Look back at the US space program, basic science research and even military programs to see where much of the foundation of our current technological age came from.… Read More
Why NA is Not Relevant to Resolution in EUV Lithography