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October 21, 2019

• i.MX RT1170: Fastest Flashless MCU
  NXP’s new i.MX RT1170 combines microcontroller features with high performance. Its 1.0GHz Cortex-M7 is the fastest CPU in its class, and its 400MHz Cortex-M4 coprocessor is also swift for its breed.
  

• Intel Slashes Pricing on X-Series
  Intel recently updated its Core X-series for high-end desktops and its related Xeon W for workstations. The big news, however, is dramatically reduced prices, a response to increased competitive pressure from AMD.
  

• Innovium Moves Down Market
  Teralynx 5 line ranges from 1.2Tbps to 6.4Tbps, extending the company’s portfolio to lower-cost and lower-power systems. It follows the 12.8Tbps Teralynx 7, which reached production in 1Q19.
  

October 14, 2019

• Everspin Raises MRAM Density
  The leader in discrete MRAM is shipping a 1Gb device, narrowing the density gap to DRAM. GlobalFoundries offers the Everspin technology for embedded MRAM.
  

• Editorial: The Many Faces of 5G
  5G is off to a flying start, but depending on the band support and price, different 5G devices offer higher or lower data rates and may be missing other important benefits of the new protocol.
  

• Arm Joins Bfloat Parade
  To accelerate neural-network training, Arm will support the Bfloat16 data format, which doubles throughput for the matrix-multiplication operations at the heart of most AI models.
  

October 7, 2019

• Huawei Delivers Powerful AI Training
  The company’s new Ascend 910 takes its DaVinci architecture into the top performance tier in AI training. Huawei will deliver accelerator cards, servers, and clusters incorporating the chip.
  

• Exynos 980 Integrates 5G Modem
  The Exynos 980 5G is Samsung’s first smartphone processor to integrate a 5G modem. The first processor to use Arm’s Cortex-A77, it also features Samsung’s fastest deep-learning accelerator.
  

• Ceva and Synopsys Spin More TOPS
  To support neural-network inference in autonomous vehicles and other high-performance edge devices, new multicore deep-learning accelerators can generate 100 TOPS or more.
  

September 30, 2019

• Kirin 990 First to Integrate 5G
  Huawei is the first company to fully announce a processor with an integrated 5G modem. The new flagship processor also leads in smartphone AI performance.
  

• Prepare for Copackaged Optics
  Electrical-I/O pin bandwidths are almost out of runway, and chips will soon hit the serdes wall. Copackaged optics provide a path forward by reducing reach, but they present a new set of challenges.
  

• Editorial: Intel 10nm Disappoints
  Intel recently began 10nm production, but the new technology falls short of its speed and power goals. These shortcomings affect the company’s current and future 10nm PC and server products.
  

September 23, 2019

• Tsinghua Pedals Hybrid AI Processor
  Tianjic’s novel hybrid architecture can concurrently run convolutional neural networks, multilayer perceptrons, recurrent neural networks, and other deep neural networks, as well as biologically inspired continuous-attractor and spiking neural networks.
  

• Power9 AIO Boosts DRAM Bandwidth
  IBM’s new Power9 AIO (Advanced I/O) server processor introduces the Open Memory Interface (OMI)—a superfast alternative to DDR4. Special DIMMs boost the peak bandwidth to 410GB/s, making Power9 ideal for memory-intensive applications.
  

• Qualcomm Updates Wi-Fi 6 Portfolio
  Qualcomm updated its Wi-Fi 6 products for both infrastructure and smartphones, also rebranding those respective lines as Networking Pro Series and FastConnect. Both achieved Wi-Fi Certified 6 status in the Wi-Fi Alliance’s new certification program.
  

• Broadcom Ships PCIe Gen4 Switches
  The PCI-SIG has completed its first compliance tests for PCI Express 4.0. The integrator’s list includes Broadcom’s PEX88000 PCIe Gen4 switch chip, which is now in production.
  

September 16, 2019

• HPE Reveals Gen-Z Fabric Chipset
  At Hot Chips, HPE disclosed industry-first Gen-Z bridge and switch chips with copackaged optics. They target exascale systems rather than mainstream servers.
  

• Unisoc Hits Mid-Premium Segment
  Raising its sights, Unisoc disclosed two new smartphone processors. The Tiger T710 offers industry-leading AI performance, while the Tiger T618 focuses on improved image processing.
  

September 9, 2019

• Mellanox Right-Sizes Smart-NIC SoC
  Although it expects to become part of Nvidia by year-end, Mellanox is pressing forward with its server-connectivity roadmap, announcing second-generation BlueField processors as well as a new Ethernet controller optimized for cloud data centers.
  

• Comet Lake Walks Over Ice Lake
  The 14nm Comet Lake is a 10th Generation alternative to the 10nm Ice Lake processor for ultrathin and hybrid laptops, offering up to six CPU cores and faster Wi-Fi than last year’s models.
  

• Cypress Tracks Indoor Locations
  Cypress’s new CYW5459 is a multimode Bluetooth+Wi-Fi combo chip that’s especially well suited to indoor asset tracking for consumer electronics, IoT, smart-home devices, and automotive.
  

September 2, 2019

• Cerebras Breaks the Reticle Barrier
  Designed for training neural networks, the startup’s first processor is by far the largest integrated circuit ever manufactured, measuring 215mm on a side and encompassing 1.2 trillion transistors.
  

• Spring Hill Sets AI Efficiency Mark
  Intel’s Nervana NNP-I accelerator is rated at 4.8 TOPS per watt and is 5x more power efficient than Nvidia’s best products for ResNet-50 inference. It fits into a tiny OCP-compliant M.2 card.
  

• Ayar Labs Realizes In-Package Optics
  The startup hopes to commercialize silicon-photonic chiplets next year, enabling customer MCMs with in-package optics. It’s working with GlobalFoundries for process technology and with Intel for MCM technology and product prototypes.
  

August 26, 2019

• Intel Spring Crest Achieves Nervana
  The Nervana NNP-T is the company’s first dedicated accelerator for neural-network training, offering 119 TOPS using the emerging Bfloat16 format. Intel plans to announce products later this year.
  

• Upmem Embeds Processors in DRAM
  French startup Upmem is tackling the processor-memory bottleneck by integrating processor cores into DRAM chips. The custom memory modules fit into standard DIMM slots.
  

• Alibaba’s Ouroboros Is a Fast Talker
  To provide improve voice interfaces in embedded devices, Alibaba is developing an AI-enabled speech-synthesizer chip that can run DeepMind’s WaveNet model using as little as 200mW. 
  

August 19, 2019

• MediaTek Helio G90 Ups Its Game
  To target gamers, the new Helio G90 and the performance-binned Helio G90T improve the CPU, display, graphics, and wireless-connectivity performance compared with the Helio P90.
  

• Editorial: 5G to the Rescue?
  Smartphone shipments are trending down, particularly in the premium segment. Even the 5G transition won’t be enough to prop up prices over the next few years.
  

• Snapdragon 855+ Aims at Gaming
  In a midyear upgrade, Qualcomm rolled out a new version of its flagship processor that provides greater CPU performance and faster graphics. It debuts in the Asus ROG Phone 2 for mobile gamers.
  

August 12, 2019

• AMD Rome Ruins Intel Hegemony
  The second-generation Epyc processors have more cores, more memory, faster I/O, and smaller transistors than Intel’s newest Xeons. The 64-core Rome outperforms the fastest Xeons and sells for less.
  

• Ice Lake Debuts 10nm, New Cores
  Intel has debuted its long-delayed 10nm technology in the new U- and Y-series notebook processors. Clock speeds suffer, but the new Sunny Cove CPU and expanded Gen11 GPU boost performance.
  

• Intel's Loihi Mimics Biological Neurons
  Intel’s Loihi is a spiking-neural-network processor comprising 128 programmable cores arranged in an 8x16 mesh-connected array. Each core can model up to 1,024 biological neurons and 128 million synapse connections.
  

August 5, 2019

• An Inside Look at AI Accelerators
  Our die analysis exposes the core counts, memory size, and area that leading mobile processors devote to AI acceleration. We break down the current AI-Benchmark results to isolate accelerator performance.
  

• Arm IP Licensing Gets More Flexible
  Arm’s new Flexible Access program enables customers to defer licensing fees until tapeout. The program includes selected Cortex-A, selected Cortex-R, and all Cortex-M CPUs, as well as Mali GPUs.
  

July 29, 2019

• Huawei Takes Lead in Smartphone AI
  The Kirin 810 processor targets the highly competitive mid-premium smartphone tier, but the chip features 7nm technology and a new in-house accelerator that offers premium-level AI performance.
  

• ST Accelerates Motor Control
  The STM32G4-series from STMicroelectronics features unique math accelerators for controlling electric motors. These Arm-based MCUs are also well equipped with mixed-signal peripherals.
  

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