Compute at the Edge

Compute at the Edge
by Bernard Murphy on 05-01-2019 at 7:00 am

At first glance, this seems like a ho-hum topic- just use whatever Arm or RISC-V solution you need – but think again. We’re now expecting to push an awful lot of functionality into these edge devices. Our imaginations don’t care about power, performance and cost; everything should be possible so let’s keep adding cool features.… Read More


Managing Formal Complexity Even into AI

Managing Formal Complexity Even into AI
by Bernard Murphy on 03-27-2019 at 7:00 am

The Synopsys Formal group have a reputation for putting on comprehensive tutorials/workshops at DVCon and this year again they did not disappoint. The theme for the Thursday workshop was tackling complexity in control and datapath designs using formal. Ravindra Aneja, who I know from Atrenta days, kicked off the session with… Read More


Machine Learning with Prior Knowledge

Machine Learning with Prior Knowledge
by Bernard Murphy on 08-09-2018 at 7:00 am

I commented recently on limitations in deep learning (DL), one of which is the inability to incorporate prior knowledge, like basic laws of mathematics or physics. Typically, understanding in DL must be inferred from the training set, which in a general sense cannot practically cover prior knowledge. Indeed one of the selling… Read More


Platform ASICs Target Datacenters, AI

Platform ASICs Target Datacenters, AI
by Bernard Murphy on 07-17-2018 at 7:00 am

There is a well-known progression in the efficiency of different platforms for certain targeted applications such as AI, as measured by performance and performance/Watt. The progression is determined by how much of the application can be run with specialized hardware-assist rather than software, since hardware can be faster… Read More


Machine Learning Neural Nets and the On-Chip Network

Machine Learning Neural Nets and the On-Chip Network
by Bernard Murphy on 03-15-2018 at 7:00 am

Machine learning (ML), and neural nets (NNs) as a subset of ML, are blossoming in all sorts of applications, not just in the cloud but now even more at the edge. We can now find them in our phones, in our cars, even in IoT applications. We have all seen applications for intelligent vision (e.g. pedestrian detection) and voice recognition… Read More


Connecting Coherence

Connecting Coherence
by Bernard Murphy on 02-27-2018 at 7:00 am

If a CPU or CPU cluster in an SoC is the brain of an SoC, then the interconnect is the rest of the central nervous system, connecting all the other processing and IO functions to that brain. This interconnect must enable these functions to communicate with the brain, with multiple types of memory, and with each other as quickly and predictably… Read More


An AI assist for 5G enhanced Mobile Broadband for mobile platforms

An AI assist for 5G enhanced Mobile Broadband for mobile platforms
by Bernard Murphy on 02-23-2018 at 7:00 am

If you’re not up-to-speed on 5G, there are three use-cases: eMBB(enhanced mobile broadband) for mobile platforms (Gbps rates, immersive gaming, VR, AR – spectrum usage also extends up to mmWave, but that’s a different topic), mMTCfor massive machine type communication (ultra-low cost, ultra-low power, very dense networks)… Read More


CEVA Ups the Ante for Edge-Based AI

CEVA Ups the Ante for Edge-Based AI
by Bernard Murphy on 01-05-2018 at 6:00 am

AI is quickly becoming the new killer app and everyone is piling on board as fast as they can. But there are multiple challenges for any would-be AI entrepreneur:

  • Forget about conventional software development; neural nets require a completely different infrastructure and skill-sets
  • More and more of the interesting opportunity
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What’s old is new again – Analog Computing

What’s old is new again – Analog Computing
by Bernard Murphy on 01-02-2018 at 7:00 am

Once in a while I like to write on a fun, off-beat topic. My muse today is analog computing, a domain that some of us antiques in the industry recall with fondness, though sadly in my case without hands-on experience. Analog computers exploit the continuous nature of analog signals together with a variety of transforms to represent… Read More


CEVA and Local AI Smarts

CEVA and Local AI Smarts
by Bernard Murphy on 11-28-2017 at 7:00 am

When we first started talking about “smart”, as in smart cars, smart homes, smart cities and the like, our usage of “smart” was arguably over-generous. What we really meant was that these aspects of our daily lives were becoming more computerized and connected. Not to say those directions weren’t useful and exciting, but we weren’t… Read More