What Is An xPU?


Almost every day there is an announcement about a new processor architecture, and it is given a three-letter acronym — TPU, IPU, NPU. But what really distinguishes them? Are there really that many unique processor architectures, or is something else happening? In 2018, John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson delivered the Turing lecture entitled, "A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture... » read more

Powering The Edge: Driving Optimal Performance With Ethos-N77 Processor


Repurposing a CPU, GPU, or DSP is an easy way to add ML capabilities to an edge device. However, where responsiveness or power efficiency is critical, a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) may be the best solution. In this paper, we describe how the Arm Ethos-N77 NPU delivers optimal performance. Click here to read more. » read more

Powering The Edge: Driving Optimal Performance With Ethos-N77 Processor


Repurposing a CPU, GPU, or DSP is an easy way to add ML capabilities to an edge device. However, where responsiveness or power efficiency is critical, a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) may be the best solution. In this paper, we describe how the Arm Ethos-N77 NPU delivers optimal performance. Click here to immediately download the paper. » read more

The Next Phase Of Computing


Apple's new M1 chip offers a glimpse of what's ahead, and not just from Apple. Being able to get 18 to 20 hours of battery life from a laptop computer moves the ball much farther down the field in semiconductor design. All of this is entirely dependent on the applications, of course. But what's important here is how much battery life and performance can be gained by designing hardware specif... » read more

Designs Beyond The Reticle Limit


Designs continue to grow in size and complexity, but today they are reaching both physical and economic challenges. These challenges are causing a reversal of the integration trend that has provided much of the performance and power gains over the past couple of decades. The industry, far from giving up, is exploring new ways to enable designs to go beyond the reticle size, which is around 8... » read more

Sensor Fusion Challenges In Cars


The automotive industry is zeroing in on sensor fusion as the best option for dealing with the complexity and reliability needed for increasingly autonomous vehicles, setting the stage for yet another shift in how data from multiple devices is managed and utilized inside a vehicle. The move toward greater autonomy has proved significantly more complicated than anyone expected at first. There... » read more

Custom Designs, Custom Problems


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

The Challenge Of Keeping AI Systems Current


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss AI and its move to the edge with Steven Woo, vice president of enterprise solutions technology and distinguished inventor at Rambus; Kris Ardis, executive director at Maxim Integrated; Steve Roddy, vice president of Arm's Products Learning Group; and Vinay Mehta, inference technical marketing manager at Flex Logix. What follows are excerpts of that ... » read more

Power And Performance Optimization At 7/5/3nm


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

Powering The Edge


On-device machine learning (ML) is a phenomenon that has exploded in popularity. Smart devices that are able to make independent decisions, acting on locally generated data, are hailed as the future of compute for consumer devices: on-device processing slashes latency; increases reliability and safety; boosts privacy and security...all while saving on power and cost. Although ML in edge d... » read more

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