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June 1, 2020

• Cortex-X1: A Bigger Arm
  Cortex-X1 debuts a series of Arm CPUs that provide a new level of smartphone performance. The company also released Cortex-A78, which increases efficiency for the mainstream line.
  

• Mali-G78 Raises Premium Performance
  The new Mali-G78 GPU strengthens Arm’s hold on licensable IP for premium phones. It outperforms the Mali-G77 by about 15%, and its larger maximum core count enables even greater performance gains.
  

• Ethos-N78 Boosts AI Efficiency
  The new Ethos-N78 is Arm’s second-generation deep-learning accelerator (DLA). In its largest configuration, the N78 can deliver peak performance of 10 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
  

May 25, 2020

• Andes Plots RISC-V Vector Heading
  Andes has delivered the first CPU core to support the new RISC-V vector extensions (RVV), even though RISC-V International (formerly the RISC-V Foundation) won’t freeze the v1.0 specifications until August. 
  

• Innovium Debuts 25.6Tbps Switch
  Startup Innovium is first to announce a 25.6Tbps Ethernet switch chip using next-generation 100Gbps PAM4 serdes. Teralynx 8 doubles the per-lane data rate of its predecessor, yielding up to 64x400G Ethernet ports.
  

May 18, 2020

• Intel Takes Desktop PCs to 10th Gen
  New 14nm processors based on Comet Lake-S offer 10 cores at the high end, clock speeds up to 5.3GHz, and Hyper-Threading for all models, delivering greater value for most customers.
  

• Prophesee Detects Rapid Movement
  Prophesee is a French startup developing event-based image sensors. It’s working with Sony on its fourth-generation device that delivers one-microsecond temporal resolution with HD spatial resolution. 
  

• Editorial: Wave Goodbye to MIPS
  Wave Computing’s bankruptcy filing leaves the future of its MIPS architecture group in doubt. One of the original RISC designs, MIPS once had a bright future but has struggled in recent years.
  

• Sima Seeks Greener AI
  To bring a new level of power efficiency to embedded systems that require neural networks, Sima is designing a chip called the MLSoC that it expects will deliver an impressive 10 TOPS/W.
  

May 11, 2020

• Perceive Reduces AI to a Math Problem
  Two-year-old startup Perceive has shattered power-efficiency benchmarks for edge-AI processors. Its first chip, Ergo, needs just 70mW to deliver 250fps on Yolo v3, all without connecting to DRAM.
  

• LeapMind Jumps on Binary Networks
  A Japanese startup is licensing a hardware design that runs binary neural networks (BNNs) at 28 TOPS per watt. It also offers software tools that greatly improve the accuracy of BNN models.
  

• Helio P95 Boosts AI and Graphics
  MediaTek is offering a slight upgrade to last year’s octa-core P90 for mid-premium smartphones. It barely stays competitive with similar chips from Huawei and Qualcomm.
  

May 4, 2020

• XMOS Xcore.ai Adds Vector Unit
  XMOS enhanced its third-generation Xcore design to include neural-network acceleration, enabling smart-home and industrial devices to add AI capability at a chip price of just $1. 
  

• MaxLinear Disconnects Intel’s Home
  MaxLinear is acquiring Intel’s Home Gateway Platform Division, separating well-hidden assets from the behemoth’s Client Computing Group (CCG). It’s getting a mixed bag of goodies from past Intel broadband acquisitions.
  

• AMD Targets HPC With Faster Epyc
  AMD introduced three new models in its Epyc processor line that demonstrate industry-leading per-core performance. Some also provide more cache memory than previous versions.
  

April 27, 2020

• RISC-V Vectors Know No Limits
  New vector extensions for the open-source RISC-V architecture are nearing formal adoption. They support almost unlimited register widths, data lanes, and data types to fit any design.
  

• Flex Logix Accelerates DSP
  On the basis of customer input, the embedded-FPGA developer has applied its NNMax deep-learning accelerators (DLAs) to finite-impulse-response (FIR) filters, achieving strong performance. 
  

April 20, 2020

• Ceva SensPro Fuses AI and Vector DSP
  Ceva’s new SensPro gives designers a versatile and highly configurable set of licensable intellectual-property (IP) cores for scalar and vector signal processing as well as neural-network acceleration.
  

• Comet Lake-H Maxes Out Clock Speed
  Intel has refreshed its Core H-series with what should be its final Skylake design. The 10th Generation processor lines up against AMD’s new Ryzen 9 4900H.
  

• Editorial: Publishing Under a Quarantine
  Many technology companies are struggling to develop new products during the unprecedented lockdowns, but The Linley Group delivers online articles and a virtual conference.
  

April 13, 2020

• Tenstorrent Scales AI Performance
  Startup Tenstorrent is sampling an AI-inference accelerator that exceeds the performance of all other data-center inference chips while using just 65W, a fraction of their power.
  

• Synopsys Launches 64-Bit ARC
  Synopsys has developed its first 64-bit ARC CPU cores, called the HS6x family, implementing its new ARCv3 ISA. The ISA also adds instructions that the new 32-bit HS5x family supports as well.
  

• ThunderX3’s Cloudburst of Threads
  Marvell’s new ThunderX3 server processor has more cores and threads per socket than any competitor. The Arm-compatible 96-core CN110xx can execute 384 threads for highly parallel applications in hyperscale cloud data centers.
  

April 6, 2020

• Connected Cars Get a Cellular Plan
  China has approved the use of Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology and plans to start deployment next year. In the US, however, conflict at the FCC has stalled deployment.
  

• Qualcomm UltraSAW Targets FBAR
  Qualcomm’s new UltraSAW filters match up well against Broadcom’s dominant FBAR technology.
  

• Ampere Pushes Neoverse to 80 Cores
  Ampere Computing is sampling Altra, an 80-core server processor based on Arm’s Neoverse N1 design. In addition to the high core count, the 7nm chip boosts the peak CPU speed to 3.0GHz.
  

• First 112Gbps PAM4 PHYs Arrive
  Inphi and Marvell are first to sample 400Gbps Ethernet PHYs that enable 112Gbps-per-lane chip-to-module interfaces. The former is sampling Spica for optical modules, whereas the latter offers its 88X9121P for the system side.
  

March 30, 2020

• Intel Snow Ridge Gains 5G Wins
  The new Atom P5900 combines up to 24 Tremont CPUs, a 440Gbps Ethernet switch, and packet accelerators, making it well suited to 5G base stations and other networking equipment.
  

• Versal Premium Targets Core Networks
  Xilinx is expanding its Versal family with new FPGAs for high-speed networking and communications. New features include 600G Ethernet, 400Gbps crypto, and 600G Interlaken.
  

• Unisoc Joins 5G-Smartphone Race
  The Tiger T7520 is Unisoc’s first processor to integrate a 5G baseband, and it’s also the first announced product to employ 6nm EUV technology at TSMC.
  

March 23, 2020

• AMD Develops Compute GPUs
  AMD won its second major supercomputer design, El Capitan, using the 5nm Genoa processor, a next-generation Infinity Fabric, and a new GPU called CDNA that’s optimized for AI and HPC.
  

• Ceva XC16 Stays Ahead of 5G Rollout
  Ceva’s XC16 DSP is a dynamically configurable multicore/multithread design. At run time, users can configure it as two symmetric dual-vector processors or as a single quad-vector processor.
  

• Editorial: Deep Learning Gets Small
  Google and the TinyML Foundation are encouraging the development of small neural networks that can run on microcontrollers, but even these tiny AI models benefit from deep-learning hardware.
  

March 16, 2020

• Marvell Upgrades to Octeon TX2
  Marvell is shipping its first major upgrades of former Cavium products, including Octeon TX2 high-speed networking processors and Octeon Fusion processors for 5G macrocells.
  

• MediaTek Brings Gamers $100 Phones
  MediaTek has repurposed its Helio P65 to create the low-cost Helio G70 and G80 processors, which target gamers using the company’s HyperEngine software.
  

• Marvell Armada Reflagged as CN913x
  Marvell extended its former Armada line with a new family of Arm-compatible processors called Octeon TX2 CN913x. They feature networking accelerators and Ethernet ports.
  

March 9, 2020

• Cortex-M55 Supports Tiny-AI Ethos
  Cortex-M55 is Arm’s first CPU to support the Helium vector extensions. It pairs with a new deep-learning accelerator, Ethos-U55, in IoT end points and other low-power embedded SoCs.
  

• Snapdragon X60 Offers 5G in 5nm
  Qualcomm’s next-generation modem adds new band combinations while using 5nm transistors to reduce power. The company also reduced the size of its mmWave RF module for 5G smartphones.
  

• Location Services Drive UWB’s Return
  High-accuracy location is propelling the resurgence of ultrawideband technology after a decade in near hibernation. Industrial applications kept impulse-radio UWB alive, and now Apple and automakers are adopting it.
  

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