Startup tips machine learning chip

Wave Computing aims to leapfrog Nvidia in artificial intelligence.

A new startup will emerge from stealth mode and into the super-heated market for machine learning this week. Wave Computing will describe a chip that can train neural networks 10 times faster than Nvidia's top GPUs while consuming the same power.

Wave's chip is one of a handful of announcements at this week's Linley Processor Conference. Also at the event, Ceva will describe a new DSP core for computer vision, Adesto will detail a NOR chip that can handle both storage and execute code, and ARM will announce a new member of its family of on-chip interconnects.

The news comes at a time of growing specialization in microprocessor design, according to the event's host, veteran chip analyst Linley Gwennap.

"In the 1970's and '80's people created a lot of different architectures, but over the past 20 years work has consolidated more on to ARM and x86," said Gwennap, principal of the Linley Group. "As Moore's law slows, Intel can't keep delivering twice the performance every two years, so people have to innovate at the architectural level again … and we will see more custom accelerators with special instruction sets to get a 10x boost in performance," he said.

To read the full article, go to EE Times.