New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

By Ed Sperling - 04 Sep, 2024 - Comments: 1

Leading AI systems designs are migrating away from building the fastest AI processor possible, adopting a more balanced approach that involves highly specialized, heterogeneous compute elements, faster data movement, and significantly lower power. Part of this shift revolves around the adoption of chiplets in 2.5D/3.5D packages, which enable greater customization for different workloads and ... » read more

Chiplet Heterogeneity And Advanced Scheduling With Pipelining

By Technical Paper Link - 12 Jan, 2024 - Comments: 0

A technical paper titled “Inter-Layer Scheduling Space Exploration for Multi-model Inference on Heterogeneous Chiplets” was published by researchers at University of California Irvine. Abstract: "To address increasing compute demand from recent multi-model workloads with heavy models like large language models, we propose to deploy heterogeneous chiplet-based multi-chip module (MCM)-based... » read more

Ferroelectric Tunnel Junctions In Crossbar Array Analog In-Memory Compute Accelerators

By Technical Paper Link - 11 Jan, 2024 - Comments: 0

A technical paper titled “Ferroelectric Tunnel Junction Memristors for In-Memory Computing Accelerators” was published by researchers at Lund University. Abstract: "Neuromorphic computing has seen great interest as leaps in artificial intelligence (AI) applications have exposed limitations due to heavy memory access, with the von Neumann computing architecture. The parallel in-memory comp... » read more

Is RISC-V Ready For Supercomputing?

By Brian Bailey - 09 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

RISC-V processors, which until several years ago were considered auxiliary processors for specific functions, appear to be garnering support for an entirely different type of role — high-performance computing. This is still at the discussion stage. Questions remain about the software ecosystem, or whether the chips, boards, and systems are reliable enough. And there are both business and t... » read more

A Minimal RISC-V

By Brian Bailey - 13 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 8

Microcontrollers exist in almost everything, but can RISC-V satisfy the needs of this market? Is it small enough to replace 8-bit processors? What might help people migrate to a more modern processor architecture? RISC-V defines a 32-bit processor instruction set architecture (ISA) that is open source and free to be implemented in any number of ways. It is touted for being a very small and e... » read more

Is Programmable Overhead Worth The Cost?

By Brian Bailey - 13 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 0

Programmability has fueled the growth of most semiconductor products, but how much does it actually cost? And is that cost worth it? The answer is more complicated than a simple efficiency formula. It can vary by application, by maturity of technology in a particular market, and in the context of much larger systems. What's considered important for one design may be very different for anothe... » read more

The High But Often Unnecessary Cost Of Coherence

By Brian Bailey - 22 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 3

Cache coherency, a common technique for improving performance in chips, is becoming less useful as general-purpose processors are supplemented with, and sometimes supplanted by, highly specialized accelerators and other processing elements. While cache coherency won't disappear anytime soon, it is increasingly being viewed as a luxury necessary to preserve a long-standing programming paradig... » read more

Bandwidth Utilization Side-Channel On ML Inference Accelerators

By Arm - 10 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 0

Abstract—Accelerators used for machine learning (ML) inference provide great performance benefits over CPUs. Securing confidential model in inference against off-chip side-channel attacks is critical in harnessing the performance advantage in practice. Data and memory address encryption has been recently proposed to defend against off-chip attacks. In this paper, we demonstrate that bandwidth... » read more

New Approaches For Processor Architectures

By Ed Sperling - 26 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

Processor vendors are starting to emphasize microarchitectural improvements and data movement over process node scaling, setting the stage for much bigger performance gains in devices that narrowly target what end users are trying to accomplish. The changes are a recognition that domain specificity, and the ability to adjust or adapt designs to unique workloads, are now the best way to impro... » read more

Working With RISC-V

By Ed Sperling - 17 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

RISC-V is coming on strong, but working with this open-source processor core isn't as simple as plugging in a commercial piece of IP. Zdenek Prikryl, CTO at Codasip, talks about utilizing hypervisors and open source tools and extensions to the RISC-V instruction set architecture, where design teams can run into problems, what will change as the architecture becomes more mature, the difference b... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?