We have known for a while that Google has been experimenting with streaming AAA games and we now know what they were aiming for because as of GDC 2019, the world has a new cloud-based gaming platform. It has a name—Stadia—and we have an explicit statement of what Google considers to be its unique strengths that will allow it … Read more
Imagination technologies have given us a more detailed look at how its PowerVR Series 2NX inferencing accelerator benefits from the variable bit depth quantization that is its unique feature. The AX 2185 core is the only one of these accelerators (as well as the later generation Series 3 devices) that we know to have been put into production; an IMG … Read more
Incumbents? What incumbents?
Lisa Su made her mark this year at CES. If you listen to the Hollywood chattering classes, you might think that there is no group of people as sexist as movie executives so it’s worth recalling that last year’s CES keynote lineup attracted the same sort of criticism. This was leveled at CTIA management for failing to find a single … Read more
Imagination Technologies is on its fourth CEO in three years, is in the process of losing its major customer, and is still dealing with the aftermath of the disastrous acquisition and subsequent fire-sale disposal of MIPS. A job like that seems nearer the nightmare than the dream job end of the spectrum so I took advantage of the whole world … Read more
The second half of Lisa Su’s CES keynote moved us onto what should be safer ground for AMD: their GPUs have had their ups and downs of course, but have always given Nvidia tough competition, to the point where it has never been possible to see them as an also-ran. That being said, the big reveal at this event was … Read more
As 2018 drew to a close Arm livened up everyone’s holiday mood by making a pair of linked announcements that signaled a determined push to make inroads into the cash-rich automotive market. On the product front, VP of Automotive, Lakshmi Mandyam gave what amounts to a pre-launch announcement of Arm’s new Cortex A65AE (for automotive enhanced) CPU. Previously known by … Read more
Just in time for Festivus, Imagination Technologies has announced its upgraded lineup of Neural Network Accelerator IP cores with three new IP core lines becoming available by the second half of 2019. This blizzard of new IP includes a new generation of single-core accelerators, a new range of multi-core IPs and a hybrid NN/GPU Compute core, all supported by an … Read more
Back when I was a young engineer at Inmos (remember them?) I attended a pep talk given by the flamboyant Texan who had the job of running our new wafer fab in Duffryn, South Wales. I don’t recall his name or much of the talk, but I do remember the white suit, the ten-gallon hat, and the ostrich-skin cowboy boots. … Read more
Neural network inference is all about the memory according to the founders of Redwood City-based Mythic. Since the company was founded in 2012, Mike Henry and Dave Fick have attracted $55 million in funding and continued to develop the mixed signal multiplier concept they came up with while at the Michigan Integrated Circuits Lab. They hold that most of the … Read more
At this year’s SIGGRAPH in Vancouver, The Khronos Group has launched its new interoperability standard for neural networks. The Neural Network Exchange Format (NNEF) is an open, implementation-independent way to describe neural networks designed to cut through the current tangle of framework-specific formats. The new standard was released in provisional form in December of 2017 and, after a period of … Read more
Arm chose this year’s IEEE Hot Chips Symposium to show off their first-generation Machine Learning Processor claiming a design that delivers ‘massive’ efficiency improvements over GPU, CPU, or DSP implementations as well as the ability to scale from IoT to server applications. Being an English design, it probably serves tea in a porcelain cup, as well. Leaving aside the issue … Read more
