Articles – Page 68

June 14, 2021

To quote a famous Scotsman, it’s a great day for America, everybody! The semiconductor industry’s Q1 results are in, and they’re good. Really good. The world’s top chipmakers collectively grew by 21% compared to this time a year ago. That’s a huge increase, especially given how large these companies were already. You try growing a billion-dollar business by twenty percent sometime.

Moreover, eight of the top 15 winners were American. The rest were (predictably) based in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, or Europe (Germany and Switzerland, sort of). </ … Read More → "Growth Everywhere but at Intel"

Modus Toolbox ML, TinyML, and the AIoT

by Max Maxfield

June 10, 2021

It’s a funny old life when you come to think about it. You never know when something is going to spring up to surprise and delight you or to bite you on the a…sk no questions. As a “surprise and delight” example, I recently received a request to give the keynote presentation at the FPGA Forum in Trondheim, Norway, 9-10 February 2022.

With regard to the “ask no questions” front, I … Read More → "Modus Toolbox ML, TinyML, and the AIoT"

How to Handle x86 Inter-Task Communication

Keeping Your Tasks Separate, But Not Too Separate

by Jim Turley

June 9, 2021

All modern x86 processors can handle task switching automatically in hardware. That’s one of their nice features. That doesn’t prevent you from coding up your own custom tasking mechanism – Microsoft Windows does – but unless you’re aiming for some specific implementation, there’s no reason to ignore the built-in version.

Most of the time, you want your tasks to be separate and independent of one another. … Read More → "How to Handle x86 Inter-Task Communication"

Xilinx Turns a Page

Update From CEO Victor Peng

by Kevin Morris

June 8, 2021

Just over three years ago, Victor Peng took the helm as CEO at Xilinx upon the retirement of Moshe Gavrielov. The management transition marked the beginning of a new era at the company, as Peng began to transform the world’s largest programmable logic company into something with broader market reach and increased potential for growth.

In 2018, a few weeks after taking over, Peng outlined the new strategy for the world. Xilinx was prioritizing “data center first,” in an effort to capture a chunk of the rapid growth expected in … Read More → "Xilinx Turns a Page"

Dynamic Flash the Next Big Thing?

Unisantis Describes Hybrid Memory Technology Almost Too Good To Be True

by Jim Turley

June 7, 2021

It was the best of DRAM access times, it was the worst of DRAM access times…

Do hybrid devices combine the best of two technologies, or the worst? Is a Toyota Prius a great leap forward, or just a small gas-powered car lugging around a heavy battery in its trunk? Peanut butter and chocolate, or floor wax and dessert topping?

How about DRAM volatility combined with flash memory’s block-erase cycles – a good combo or a terrible idea? Let’s complicate the decision. What … Read More → "Dynamic Flash the Next Big Thing?"

Are We Ready for Human Brain-Scale AI?

by Max Maxfield

June 3, 2021

My poor old noggin is currently full of ideas ricocheting around like corn kernels in an over-enthusiastic popcorn machine. As a tempting teaser, are you aware that: “Tachyum is enabling human brain-scale AI and advancing the entire world to a greener era by delivering the world’s first universal processor”? If not, then I will be delighted to expound, explicate, and elucidate, but first…

I’m currently gnashing my teeth and rending my garb because I just missed the chance to commemorate my one millionth birthday. I did celebrate my … Read More → "Are We Ready for Human Brain-Scale AI?"

We Interrupt This Program…

Intel and AMD Contemplate Different Replacements for x86 Interrupt Handling

by Jim Turley

June 2, 2021

At some point, the house of cards begins to topple over. It’s no secret that the x86 processor architecture is almost aged enough to collect a pension. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a creaking old bit of wheezing ironmongery that, had the gods of microprocessor architecture been more generous, would have been smote into oblivion long ago.

Intel and AMD have done an amazing job keeping the old girl running for all these decades, but the strain is beginning to tell. Programming x86 … Read More → "We Interrupt This Program…"

Prophesee Image Chip Is Motion Sensitive

Unusual Image Sensor Sees Things in a Different Light

by Jim Turley

May 31, 2021

Security cameras and image sensors are pretty stupid, as we’ve explained before. Yet they’re important for a range of applications that have nothing to do with taking selfies at the beach. We use cameras for inspection, for security, for quality control, for medical diagnosis, and for about a hundred other things.

If you’ve ever dealt with image sensors, you know they’re simple in concept but … Read More → "Prophesee Image Chip Is Motion Sensitive"

Aspinity’s Awesome Analog Artificial Neural Networks (AANNs)

by Max Maxfield

May 27, 2021

I’m a digital logic designer by trade. In an ever-changing and increasingly unreliable world, I find the certainty of Boolean equations to be extremely reassuring. You know where you are with a Karnaugh map, you can trust a De Morgan transformation, and you can gratify your desire for single-bit transitions with a Gray code. By comparison, I find the wibbly-wobbly nature of analog electronics to be somewhat disconcerting, which is unfortunate because there’s so much of it about these days.

One of the funny things is that “analog” … Read More → "Aspinity’s Awesome Analog Artificial Neural Networks (AANNs)"

ARM Announces Names and Claims

Upcoming CPU, GPU Cores Have Names, but No Technical Details

by Jim Turley

May 26, 2021

In its latest gender reveal party, ARM today announced the names of its next generation of IP cores and… not much else. There weren’t even any fireworks, drunkenness, injuries, or YouTube-worthy stunts.

The company did roll out two new buzz phrases, though: “total compute” and “purpose-built compute,” by which it means there’s a processor, coprocessor, GPU, or system bus for every conceivable purpose. It’s a reminder that you can pretty much build anything you want using naught but IP cores licensed from the British/Japanese/maybe American … Read More → "ARM Announces Names and Claims"