Analog AI chip startup wants to achieve 1 POPS per Watt: 1000 TOPS/W is 'within reach' says firm co-founder as he looks to analog-first Gigabit-sized SLMs

Date:
Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:32:00 +0000

Description:
Analog AI chip startup Blumind wants to achieve 1 POPS per Watt.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Blumind debuts ultra-efficient analog AI chip, achieving 10 nJ/inference Targeting wearables, healthcare, automotive, and always-on AI Scaling for larger
models, aiming for 1000 TOPS/W performance

Blumind, an analog AI chip startup, has showcased a chip designed for low-power applications achieving an impressive 10 nJ per inference, setting the stage for the companys ambition to scale analog computing to new heights.

The company showed off its test silicon for ultra-efficient keyword spotting chip at Electronica 2024 , where co-founder Niraj Mathur told EE Times ,
Whats been particularly gratifying is that over the last year, theres been more pull than us pushing."

"People have been coming to us specifically asking for analog AI solutions because they believe something new needs to happen. 1000 TOPS/W is within reach

Blumind has already seen interest from wearable, automotive, and healthcare sectors. One of the examples the company gave was for a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) capable of analyzing road conditions.

The customer needed this to offer, extreme power efficiency because its sitting in the tire, its got to last the lifetime of the tire, you dont want to open up the tire to change the battery, Mathur explained. Another
potential use involved detecting heart signals through a pacemaker sensor powered by energy harvested from muscle movement, requiring only a few
hundred nanoWatts of power.

The startups first product, an analog keyword spotting chip, is set for
volume production in 2025. It will be available as both a standalone chip and a chiplet that integrates into microcontroller unit packages. Chiplets are
the other avenue of integration for our customers, Mathur said in his interview with EE Times . This approach allows Bluminds technology to complement fully programmable MCUs, focusing on always-on AI tasks.

Looking ahead, Blumind aims to scale its analog architecture for applications requiring much larger models, such as vision CNNs and eventually
gigabit-sized small language models (SLMs). Mathur said the companys goal of achieving 1000 TOPS/W is within reach, emphasizing the potential of analog-first, multi-die solutions.

Despite his companys ambitious roadmap, Mathur stressed the importance of a pragmatic approach. No-one has really brought analog compute to high volume production and delivered on its promise. We want to be the first to do that, but we want to walk before we try and run, he said. You might also like IBM has an analog AI chip that could give H100 a run for its money Businesses are struggling to harness the full power of AI Biggest rival to Nvidia demos million-core super AI inference chip



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/analog-ai-chip-startup-wants-to-achieve-1-pops-p er-watt-1000-tops-w-is-within-reach-says-firm-co-founder-as-he-looks-to-analog -first-gigabit-sized-slms


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)