tag: GPU

Performance First
By Ed Sperling - 16 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Crank up the clock speed. It takes a lot more performance to run virtual reality smoothly, or to process data in the cloud, or to stream a high-definition video from a drone. And none of that compares to the amount of performance required to kill an array of disturbingly realistic zombies on a mobile device in conjunction with other players scattered around the globe. After several years of ... » read more

CPU, GPU, or FPGA?
By Jeff Dorsch - 16 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 1080 gaming graphics card is a piece of work. Employing the company’s Pascal architecture and featuring chips made with a 16nm [getkc id="185" kc_name="finFET"] process, the GTX 1080’s GP104 graphics processing units boast 7.2 billion transistors, running at 1.6 GHz, and it can be overclocked to 1.733 GHz. The die size is 314 mm², 21% smaller than its GeForce ... » read more

The Mightier Microcontroller
By Ed Sperling - 26 May, 2016 - Comments: 1

Microcontrollers are becoming more complex, more powerful, and significantly more useful, but those improvements come with strings attached. While it's relatively straightforward to develop multi-core microcontroller (MCU) hardware with advanced power management features, it's much more difficult to write software for these chips because memory is limited. CPUs can use on-chip memory such as... » read more

Convolutional Neural Networks Power Ahead
By Ann Mutschler - 18 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 0

While the term may not be immediately recognizable, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are already part of our daily lives—and they are expected to become even more significant in the near future. [getkc id="261" kc_name="Convolutional neural networks"] are a form of machine learning modeled on the way the brain's visual cortex distinguishes one object from another. That helps explain wh... » read more

GPU-Based Computing In Photomask Manufacturing
By Aki Fujimura - 28 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Graphical-processing unit (GPU)-accelerated computing has reached maturity for professional, scientific computing applications. One example of this is the recent GPU-accelerated thermal application for semiconductor photomask manufacturing, which is used in 24/7 manufacturing environments. GPU-accelerated computing won’t be a universal panacea for the semiconductor industry’s “need for sp... » read more

Coherency, Cache And Configurability
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Coherency is gaining traction across a wide spectrum of applications as systems vendors begin leveraging heterogeneous computing to improve performance, minimize power, and simplify software development. Coherency is not a new concept, but making it easier to apply has always been a challenge. This is why it has largely been relegated to CPUs with identical processor cores. But the approach ... » read more

How Many Cores? (Part 2)
By Ed Sperling - 21 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 1

New chip architectures and new packaging options—including fan-outs and 2.5D—are changing basic design considerations for how many cores are needed, what they are used for, and how to solve some increasingly troublesome bottlenecks. As reported in part one, just adding more cores doesn't necessarily improve performance, and adding the wrong size or kinds of cores wastes power. That has s... » read more

Running Out Of Energy?
By Ann Mutschler - 16 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 1

The anticipated and growing energy requirements for future computing needs will hit a wall in the next 24 years if the current trajectory is correct. At that point, the world will not produce enough energy for all of the devices that are expected to be drawing power. A report issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Semiconductor Research Corp., bases its conclusions on system-le... » read more

How Many Cores? (Part 1)
By Ed Sperling - 10 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 2

The optimal number of processor cores in chip designs is becoming less obvious, in part due to new design and architectural options that make it harder to draw clear comparisons, and in part because just throwing more cores at a problem does not guarantee better performance. This is hardly a new problem, but it does have a sizable list of new permutations and variables—right-sized heteroge... » read more

How To Choose A Processor
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Choosing a processor might seem straightforward at first glance, but like many engineering challenges it's harder than it looks. When is a CPU better than a GPU, MCU, DSP or other type of processor? And for what design—or part of a design? For decades, the CPU has been the default choice. “It is deliberately designed to be pretty efficient at all tasks, is straightforward to program, ... » read more

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