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April 26, 2021

• Cerebras Doubles Down With WSE2
  The second-generation Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) fits two trillion transistors on a single piece of silicon, generating unprecedented scientific and AI performance in the 23-kilowatt CS-2 system.
  

• EdgeCortix IP Lowers AI Latency
  EdgeCortix is taking aim at the high-end edge market with its custom intellectual property (IP), delivering class-leading efficiency and latency for AI inference through a dual-accelerator approach.
  

• Innatera’s Spiking Neural Processor
  The startup has developed a true analog SNN architecture for fixed-function edge applications. It expects the new chip to perform pattern recognition using as little as 100 microwatts.
  

April 19, 2021

• Ice Lake-SP Leaps to 40 Cores
  Intel’s 3rd Generation Xeon Scalable processor offers up to 40 cores while upgrading memory and I/O bandwidth, resulting in a big performance gain at the top of the line but modest benefits for mainstream models.
  

• Expedera Tops DLA-IP Charts
  The startup’s Origin deep-learning accelerator provides industry-leading performance per watt for mobile, smart-home, and other camera-based devices. Now available for licensing, the design scales to 100 TOPS.
  

• Arm Aims to Secure Its Realm
  The next-generation Arm v9-A ISA is the company’s first full architecture increment in a decade. It includes previously announced Arm v8-A features along with Realm, the successor to TrustZone.
  

April 12, 2021

• Syntiant NDP120 Sharpens Its Hearing
  Although mainly for speech recognition, Syntiant’s second-generation chip adds audio processing and can even handle simple object detection. In always-on mode, it consumes less than 500 microwatts.
  

• Snapdragon 780G Doubles AI Speed
  Compared with last year’s Snapdragon 765G, Qualcomm’s latest mid-premium smartphone processor doubles AI performance and integrates a new CPU cluster that boosts multicore processing by 78%.
  

• Editorial: Chip Shortage Worsens
  A fire and frozen fabs have exacerbated the recent chip shortage, particularly for carmakers. In the meantime, Intel relaunched its foundry business but faces familiar pitfalls.
  

April 5, 2021

• IBM Demonstrates New AI Data Types
  An IBM test chip can train and inference neural networks with impressive efficiency. It uses smaller data types (8-bit FP and 4-bit integer) than most other AI accelerators yet maintains the same output accuracy.
  

• MediaTek Sets the Smart-TV Standard
  A powerhouse in the Android-TV segment, MediaTek has again raised the bar by releasing the MT9638, which features an AI accelerator. The chip can also be used in streaming dongles.
  

• Ceva Bluebud Streams Wireless Stereo
  Bluebud is a turnkey solution for implementing true-wireless-stereo earbuds. It includes several of the company’s licensable cores along with software that supports Bluetooth Classic and the new Low Energy Audio.
  

March 29, 2021

• Rocket Lake Lifts Off From Sunny Cove
  Intel’s new 11th generation desktop-PC processor finally replaces the Skylake CPU with the Sunny Cove microarchitecture, delivering a greater gain in single-core performance than its three predecessors combined.
  

• Lightmatter Shines in Data-Center AI
  Lightmatter aims to deliver the industry’s first photonic AI processor. After successfully testing the prototype it introduced last year, the startup is scaling the architecture by 16x for its production system.
  

• ST Raises IoT Power Efficiency
  STMicroelectronics’ new STM32U5 microcontroller is a fast, power-efficient chip for consumer and industrial-IoT systems. Its 160MHz Cortex-M33 CPU, large memories, and integrated peripherals set it apart.
  

March 22, 2021

• Sunway Gives China HPC Independence
  Jiangnan Computing Lab recently disclosed details of Sunway, a made-in-China architecture that powers some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, including a next-generation exascale design.
  

• R-Car V3U Runs Lockstep Neural Nets
  The new Renesas R-Car V3U delivers 66 TOPS for Level 2 and Level 3 ADASs. To support ASIL D functional safety, it employs hardware redundancy in all compute subsystems, including its DLAs.
  

• Editorial: CGRA: A New AI Way
  Several new companies are using coarse-grain reconfigurable arrays and other data-flow architectures to accelerate neural networks. This approach offers advantages over traditional multicore designs.
  

• i.MX8ULP Uses FD-SOI to Cut Power
  NXP has extended its i.MX8 series to serve battery-powered devices by replacing the i.MX7ULP. The new model upgrades to more modern CPUs including Cortex-A35 and Cortex-M33.
  

March 15, 2021

• AMD Milan Extends Server Lead
  The third-generation Epyc processors get a big boost from the new Zen 3 CPU, enabling AMD to, for the first time, surpass Intel Xeon processors in both single- and multithread performance.
  

• Driver Monitoring Makes ADAS Safer
  A driver-monitoring system is essential for Level 2+ autonomous vehicles and can save lives in any car. With shipments set to soar in the next few years, chipmakers are focusing on this new application.
  

• MediaTek’s M80 Delivers mmWave
  The new 5G modem provides the first real millimeter-wave competition for Qualcomm. It brings an extensive upgrade by offering faster downlinks and uplinks with support for 3GPP Release 16.
  

March 8, 2021

• Intel’s Jasper Lake Lifts GPU by 5x
  Intel’s Jasper Lake brings a 5x GPU-performance increase to the traditionally underserved low-end segment. Relative to its predecessor, Gemini Lake, the new chip also raises single-core and multicore CPU performance.
  

• Deep Vision Optimizes AI Data Flow
  The startup has developed the ARA-1 inference coprocessor for edge applications along with a broad software stack. The chip delivers strong performance on ResNet-50 and MobileNet at just 2W.
  

• Microchip Enables PCIe Gen5 for AI
  Microchip is sampling Switchtec PFX PCIe 5.0 switch chips to support Intel’s forthcoming Sapphire Rapids, doubling the bandwidth of its earlier Gen4 chips.
  

March 1, 2021

• Snapdragon Shifts to Self-Driving Cars
  Building on its leadership in automotive connectivity chips (cellular modems and Bluetooth+Wi-Fi combos), Qualcomm is developing Snapdragon-based systems that target ADASs, autonomous vehicles, and cockpit monitoring.
  

• Pixelworks’ i6 Renews Phone Displays
  Pixelworks brings premium features to midrange phones by continuously improving images and video to high dynamic range (HDR) and reducing power consumption in certain applications.
  

• Qualcomm Pushes 5G to 10Gbps
  The Snapdragon X65 modem increases the top data rate by 33% relative to the older Snapdragon X60. The 4nm design offers a preview of the 5G capabilities in Qualcomm’s next-generation flagship-smartphone processor.
  

February 22, 2021

• Horizon Robotics Plots ADAS Journey
  In 2Q21, Horizon Robotics plans to start volume production of its Journey 3 ADAS processor. At the same time, it intends to sample Journey 5, which targets Level 4 autonomous vehicles.
  

• Maxim Showcases Efficient Custom AI
  The top-10 microcontroller vendor has hopped on the AI bus with its ultra-low-power MAX78000. The device combines a complete Arm-based MCU with the company’s first deep-learning accelerator (DLA).
  

• Editorial: Gelsinger’s Big Challenge
  New Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, with the help of three trusted lieutenants, must fix the engineering problems that have plagued not just the company’s fab technology but also important server and AI products.
  

February 15, 2021

• Enflame Stokes AI Acceleration
  Enflame Technology closed a 1.8-billion-yuan ($280 million) Series C round last month that includes backing from Tencent. The Shanghai startup now offers a series of AI accelerators for both training and inference.
  

• MT8192 Creates Chromebook Buzz
  Hoping to steal share from Intel, MediaTek raised its sights in the Chromebook market by delivering the MT8192, doubling CPU performance and tripling GPU performance compared with its predecessor.
  

• Qualcomm Acquires Nuvia for CPUs
  Although the startup was developing a custom Arm-compatible CPU core for a new server processor, Qualcomm will redirect this power-efficient core to serve in flagship smartphones and other products.
  

February 8, 2021

• SambaNova Takes On Nvidia’s DGX
  The well-funded startup has developed a custom AI-accelerator chip, called the Cardinal SN10, that implements a coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) to handle training and inference.
  

• MediaTek Redefines Premium Phones
  The Dimensity 1100 and 1200 target an emerging class of devices for customers who want a great smartphone but don’t want to spend $1,000. The D1200 offers industry-leading multicore performance.
  

• Ceva SensPro2 Doubles AI Throughput
  SensoPro2 is a configurable sensor hub, fusing elements from Ceva’s DSPs, computer-vision engines, and deep-learning accelerators. The second-generation design delivers up to 6x faster DSP performance.
  

February 1, 2021

• Ryzen 5000 Boosts Laptop Performance
  AMD’s new PC processors, based on its Cezanne design, target ultrathin and gaming laptops. Using the Zen 3 core, they top Intel’s Tiger Lake products in CPU and graphics performance.
  

• Exynos 2100 Delivers Big GPU Gain
  Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 smartphone sports the Exynos 2100 SoC, which delivers industry-leading AI throughput and an integrated 5G modem. The company’s 5nm technology helps to reduce power.
  

• Andes Scales Up Its RISC-V
  Andes converged its superscalar RISC-V CPU with multicore scaling to create its most powerful cluster to date. The AX45MP targets high-performance applications across diverse markets.
  

January 25, 2021

• Analysts’ Choice Winners for 2020
  The Linley Group recognizes 2020’s top products in the categories of data center, PC, embedded, mobile, networking, processor IP, and related technology. And the winners are…
  

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