Inferencing Efficiency


Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about how to measure efficiency in inferencing chips, how to achieve the most throughput for the lowest cost, and what the benchmarks really show. » read more

June’19 Startup Funding


During the month of June, there were 15 startups that brought in funding rounds of $100 million or more, as investors continued to chase deals in cybersecurity, automotive technology, semiconductors, and a variety of services. There were no billion-dollar deals as spring slid into summer; yet, those 15 companies together raised a total of about $3.13 billion. Aurora Innovation, the developer... » read more

System Bits: July 10


Light waves run on silicon-based chips Researchers at the University of Sydney’s Nano Institute and Singapore University of Technology and Design collaborated on manipulating light waves on silicon-based microchips to keep coherent data as it travels thousands of miles on fiber-optic cables. Such waves—whether a tsunami or a photonic packet of information—are known as solitons. The... » read more

HW/SW Design At The Intelligent Edge


Adding intelligence to the edge is a lot more difficult than it might first appear, because it requires an understanding of what gets processed where based on assumptions about what the edge actually will look like over time. What exactly falls under the heading of Intelligent Edge varies from one person to the next, but all agree it goes well beyond yesterday’s simple sensor-based IoT dev... » read more

Week in Review – IoT, Security, Auto


Products/Services Synopsys announced successful deployment of the Synopsys Yield Explorer yield learning platform for fast ramp-up of new products on Samsung's advanced finFET technology nodes. Using the secure data exchange mechanism in Yield Explorer, Samsung is able to share the data required for yield analysis, such as chip design, fab, and test, with its customers while maintaining the co... » read more

System Bits: July 3


CMU prof gets a shot at new supercomputer The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center will greet its Perlmutter supercomputing system in early 2020. The Cray-designed machine will be capable of 100 million billion floating operations per second. Zachary Ulissi of Carnegie Mellon University will be among the first researchers to use the supercomputer. "When this machine comes on... » read more

Security’s Very Strange Path To Success


Security at the chip level appears to be heading toward a more promising future. The reason is simple—more people are willing to pay for security than in the past. For the most part, security is like insurance. You don't know it's working until something goes wrong, and you don't necessarily even know right away if there has been a breach. Sometimes it takes years to show up, because it ca... » read more

TOPS, Memory, Throughput And Inference Efficiency


Dozens of companies have or are developing IP and chips for Neural Network Inference. Almost every AI company gives TOPS but little other information. What is TOPS? It means Trillions or Tera Operations per Second. It is primarily a measure of the maximum achievable throughput but not a measure of actual throughput. Most operations are MACs (multiply/accumulates), so TOPS = (number of MAC... » read more

Automotive Trends Create New Challenges For Wiring Harness Development


The rapid introduction of new technologies and the influx of automotive start-ups into the market has led to a multitude of challenges for harness development. OEMs and startups alike must consider the number and sophistication of technology features they integrate into their vehicles as they have a direct effect on harness weight, bundle diameter, and cost. Electrification, autonomous drive an... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Products/Services Visa agreed to acquire the token and electronic ticketing business of Rambus for $75 million in cash. The business involved is part of the Smart Card Software subsidiary of Rambus. It includes the former Bell ID mobile-payment businesses and the Ecebs smart-ticketing systems for transit providers. Meanwhile, Rambus expanded its CryptoManager Root of Trust product line. “Sec... » read more

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