Startup Funding: November 2020


Numerous chipmakers pulled in funding in November 2020, with investors putting money into interconnects, memories, AI hardware, and quantum computing. Launching from stealth was a startup aiming to combine AI and 5G. Autonomous delivery did well, too, with one company raising a massive $500M. This month, we take a look at 28 companies that raised a collective $1.1B. Semi & design Connec... » read more

Convolutional Neural Network With INT4 Optimization


Xilinx provides an INT8 AI inference accelerator on Xilinx hardware platforms — Deep Learning Processor Unit (XDPU). However, in some resource-limited, high-performance and low-latency scenarios (such as the resource-power-sensitive edge side and low-latency ADAS scenario), low bit quantization of neural networks is required to achieve lower power consumption and higher performance than provi... » read more

Apples, Oranges & The Optimal AI Inference Accelerator


There are a wide range of AI inference accelerators available and a wide range of applications for them. No AI inference accelerator will be optimal for every application. For example, a data center class accelerator almost certainly will be too big, burn too much power, and cost too much for most edge applications. And an accelerator optimal for key word recognition won’t have the capabil... » read more

Software Is At Least As Important As Hardware For Inference Accelerators


In articles and conference presentations on Inference Accelerators, the focus is primarily on TOPS (frequency times number of MACs), a little bit on memory (DRAM interfaces and on chip SRAM), very little on interconnect (also very important, but that’s another story) and almost nothing on the software! Without software, the inference accelerator is a rock that does nothing. Software is wha... » read more

Pushing AI Into The Mainstream


Artificial intelligence is emerging as the driving force behind many advancements in technology, even though the industry has merely scratched the surface of what may be possible. But how deeply AI penetrates different market segments and technologies, and how quickly it pushes into the mainstream, depend on a variety of issues that still must be resolved. In addition to a plethora of techni... » read more

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