Wave Computing Chooses <span style='color:red'>MIPS</span> 64-bit RISC
  MIPS, a storied but beleagured RISC processor core company, is coming back to life. Breathing new life into MIPS are a new customer — Wave Computing — and a number of existing clients that include Intel/Mobileye, NetSpeed, Fungible, ThiCI and Denso. All have pledged to use MIPS 64-bit multi-threaded processor core to handle device management and control functions inside their respective AI processors — many either in development or ready for rollout.  Wave Computing is a designer of a massively parallel dataflow architecture called Wave Dataflow Processing Unit (DPU) for deep learning. Wave Computing, which is getting ready to roll out its beta system in the next few weeks by using the company’s first-generation processor, has decided to use MIPS 64-bit CPU for the company’s second-generation DPU, Derek Meyer, Wave Computing CEO and a veteran of MIPS, told EE Times.  In the first-generation DPU, Wave Computing used a 32-bit RISC processor core developed by Taiwan’s Andes Technology Corp. Replacing it with a 64-bit RISC processor was Wave Computing’s plan all along, said Meyer. The question, however, was which 64-bit RISC core to choose. “Obviously, during our research, we looked at RISC-V, and a whole bunch of others,” Meyer said.  But when the issue comes down to a “RISC processor with hardware multi-threading architecture and cache coherence,” Meyer said, “MIPS is the only one. There are no other RISC processors that can do that today.”  MIPS’ future was uncertain when the company, acquired by Imagination Technologies in 2013, was believed to have lost its focus and momentum under the then new management. Choosing MIPS was too risky a decision for many SoC companies’ standard. This changed when Tallwood Venture Capital bought MIPS late last fall. The deal brought Dado Banatao, Tallwood’s managing partner, into MIPS as chairman of the board.  “With Dado [Banatao] heading the company, we see the stability is coming back to MIPS,” said Meyer. “I’ve always loved MIPS and love it more with Dado involved. He’s a real visionary.” Banatao is an investor in both MIPS and Wave Computing.  Why multithreading and cache coherence are important  Wave Computing’s Meyer sees MIPS’ multithreading technology as key for why his team wants MIPS. In Wave Computing’s dataflow processing, “when we load, unload and reload data for machine learning agent, hardware multithreading architecture is effective,” said Meyer.  Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, told us, “Multithreading is a way to efficiently add many threads with a smaller number of cores. It's very effective for workloads that have a lot of short tasks.”  Cache coherence is another positive Wave’s team sees in MIPS. “Because our DPU is 64-bit, it only makes sense both MIPS and DPU talk to the same memory in 64-bit address space,” said Meyer.  Paul Teich, principle analyst at Tirias Research, explained, “Cache coherence means that the results of a convolution are available to all other threads on a chip.” He noted, “As a layer of neurons in a model is processed, larger on-chip caches mean more of the layer can stay resident in cache, and maybe even multiple layers. That means fewer latency-inducing accesses to system memory and better performance.”  Still early in AI market growth  While MIPS rattled off a host of AI processor companies who have adopted MIPS, the AI market is still in an early phase.  Teich told us he sees several different AI accelerator camps. First, there is the GPU gang consisting of Nvida and AMD, plus Arm, Qualcomm and others for mobile. Krewell added, “Nvidia rules the market from here.”  Then there is an FPGA posse, including Intel and Xilinx.  There is also a DSP camp consisting of Qualcomm, Ceva and a few others.  Finally, there is a team working on new architecture, said Teich. This group includes Arm, Fungible, Mobileye, Thinci, Wave Computing, and others. Google's TPU is a member, Teich added.  With all said and done, Teich concluded that Tirias Research believes AI is going to contribute to most workloads in the future.  “The industry is just at the start of this ride, so there is plenty of upside for the foreseeable future," he said. "It's unlikely Nvidia’s competitors will impede its current growth, but we're still early in AI market growth.”  Teich added, “It is not a zero -sum game.” There will be a lot of market opportunities available and a lot of experimentation will be going on. “MIPS can benefit from that,” Teich said.  Wave Computing updates  Wave Computing’s Meyer told us that although his company developed a unique DPU architecture, it won’t be selling its chips. Instead, it will make systems it hopes to sell into data centers.  Wave Computing has positioned itself as a competitor to Nvidia’s customers such as Dell EMC, HPE, IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, Huawei, Quanta, Insupr, Sugon, Tyan, and Wiwynn, observed Teich. Wave will also directly compete with Nvidia's DGX line of standalone appliances, Krewell added.  While such a long list looks formidable, Teich observed that customers are all looking for a differentiated competitive edge for their workloads. “That is more difficult when the OEMs and ODMs are all trying to architecturally innovate around a small set of Nvidia's products,” said Teich. “If Wave Computing can give a cloud service a quantifiable edge for a specific workload, I think they will see some traction.”  Wave Computing plans to soon disclose details as to how much faster Wave Computing’s systems can run both training and inference.  Asked how far along Wave Computing is in terms of integrating MIPS 64-bit processor core, Meyer said, “We’ve been working on it since Dado [Banatao] came to MIPS last November.”  Noting that Wave Computing has a wealth of MIPS veterans including MIPS’ former CTO and VP of engineering, Meyer said, “It’s a small world in Silicon Valley. We are pretty far along when it comes to understanding what we need to do.”
Key word:
Release time:2018-03-09 00:00 reading:1048 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>MIPS</span> Is Back, With An Eye on AI
  MIPS has returned to Santa Clara as an independent company, fresh with VC gold, and — it says — ready to hire.  Tallwood Venture Capital, a U.S. venture capital firm, led the acquisition of MIPS from Imagination Technologies last October. Tallwood has been joined by Paxion Capital Partners as investors in MIPS. There also appears to be another VC — unnamed at this point — pitching in soon.  MIPS' prodigal return to the Bay Area is welcome news for MIPS team members who’ve stuck it out through thick and thin.  Reportedly, MIPS clients and OEMs are equally delighted to learn that MIPS is returning to its embedded roots, Majid Bemanian, MIPS’ director of marketing, told EE Times. The processor core IP supplier held meetings with present, past and future customers and OEMs in a private suite at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, he said.  MIPS’ priorities are getting back into the embedded space, realigning its resources, exploring a future role in the red-hot AI market and becoming a self-sustaining entity.  MIPS’ future is boosted by hands-on involvement and stewardship by Dado Banatao, the managing partner of Tallwood Venture Capital and now chairman of the MIPS board. Banatao, who has been an investor, entrepreneur and engineer deeply rooted in Silicon Valley, has been called a “visionary.” He commands respect throughout the semiconductor industry. Before turning to venture capitalism, he co-founded S3, Chips and Technologies, and Mostron.  On the first day MIPS returned to being an independent company, Banatao gathered everyone at MIPS, made a soaring speech and affirmed his commitment to taking MIPS back to the future.  “Everyone was very encouraged by Dado’s speech,” said Bemanian, who believes it has helped retain much of MIPS’ core engineering talent.  However, MIPS is disclosing neither its size today nor the number of people it has lost since Imagination Technologies acquired MIPS five years ago. “We need to re-organize ourselves first,” said Bemanian. “But we will be hiring more people soon.”  Lost identity, foot print  While MIPS was under Imagination Technologies’ roof, it lost focus, its own identity and its footprint on the market. Bemanian acknowledged during the interview that many MIPS engineers felt as though they were forced into becoming what they were not in order to support its parent company. Imagination had hoped MIPS could be the processing core in the mobile market. “We felt as though we lost our heritage,” Bemanian said.  In two years since Imagination chose to spin off MIPS, the MIPS team has come together, trying to chart a path to get back on track in the embedded market, he said. “We know MIPS has so much to offer in terms of real-time support, multithreaded architecture and virtualization, in addition to functional safety and security," he added, claiming some of the work they’ve already done in the last two years is beginning to gain traction on the market.  There is no doubt that MIPS is an iconic CPU architecture. But the big question now is how long it can remain relevant in a market where RISC-V is rising?  Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, told EE Times, “MIPS can certainly remain relevant. It's still a classic RISC architecture that has been used for years. There's still support for MIPS by Microchip for microcontrollers. The architecture is extensible, so it's possible to add instructions for inference acceleration.  Krewell added, “What's missing is mainstream operating system support (Android and Windows). Even embedded OS support is starting to wane.” Further, the problem, as he sees it, is “that the trajectory for MIPS was heading in the wrong direction and with the rise of RISC-V, there was less and less reason to support MIPS as an alternative to ARM.”  He added, “Many high-performance MIPS designs for networking were all moving to ARM64 and support from Cisco was going away.”  However, MIPS’ Bemanian remains hopeful. Besides Microchip, large customers sticking with MIPS include Mobileye, now an Intel company, and MediaTek. Denso, a large automotive tier one in Japan, is also a MIPS’ customer.  MediaTek, for example, has adopted multi-threaded MIPS CPUs for LTE modems designed for smartphones. Bemanian explained that the consumer chip giant in Taiwan turned to MIPS so that they can leverage the efficiency of MIPS multi-threading technology to improve response time (and power efficiency) in the LTE space.  MIPS’ engagement in Denso is also promising, according to Bemanian. MIPS’ best case is a move into the highly automated vehicle market. With MIPS’ multi-cache coherent architecture that can process 100 threads in a single cluster, MIPS will be effective in handling distributed workload process, he added.  The road to AI  In his view, MIPS’ versatility and efficiency will work to MIPS' advantage as it moves deeper into the AI market. MIPS can handle payload in the data plane, but will also be very effective in managing data in the control plane on the edge. “MIPS can be a part of inference engines or it can be used to manage accelerators around GPUs and FPGAs as well,” Bemanian said.  Detailed plans for MIPS to profit from the bourgeoning AI market are still being worked out. But a vast network of contacts Banatao has, and Tallwood Venture Capital’s investment in AI companies could prove helpful.  For one, Wave Computing (Campbell, Calif.) is designing a massively parallel dataflow architecture called Wave Dataflow Processing Unit (DPU) for deep learning. Banatao’s Tallwood is one of its investors.  Reached by EE Times, Derek Meyer, Wave Computing CEO, a veteran of MIPS, asserted that Wave Computing and MIPS today have “no business relationships.” The only common thread is that “Dado invested in each.”  Asked about the relevance of MIPS today, Meyer said, “I’ve always loved MIPS and love it more with Dado involved. He’s a real visionary.”  Separately, MIPS’ customer Denso has invested in another AI chip company. Denso was a lead investor in ThinCI, an Eldorado, Calif.-based startup developing a chip for machine learning and computer vision, called Graph Streaming Processor.  MIPS recently snagged John Hennessy, former president of Stanford University and an original co-founder of MIPS Computer Systems to serve on MIPS’ technical advisory board. Pradeep Sindhu, founder and chief scientist of Juniper Networks, and Steve Fu, former chief strategy officer of Fairchild Semiconductors, will all join MIPS’ technical advisory board.  In a statement, Hennessy said, “With the emergence of AI in applications that will touch all of our lives in ways we can’t yet begin to fathom, this is an incredibly exciting time to see MIPS position themselves in the epicenter of the AI universe.” He emphasized the initial simplicity, efficiency and extensibility of the MIPS architecture will provide “advantages for an ever-changing range of applications.”
Key word:
Release time:2018-01-19 00:00 reading:1090 Continue reading>>
Will Imagination Deals Deliver <span style='color:red'>MIPS</span> to China?
  Semiconductor industry watchers are pointedly curious about the fine print of two separate agreements governing the sale of U.K.-based IP licensor Imagination Technologies.  The sales of imagination was widely anticipated after the firm put itself up for sale in June, two months after its largest customer, Apple, said it would phase out use of Imagination technology in products that include the iPhone. But the deals announced Friday (Sept. 22), in which Imagination sold itself to Canyon Bridge Capital Partners and MIPS to Tallwood Venure Capital, left market watchers with several questions.  First, did Imagination structure both agreements in such a way as to allow Canyon Bridge — a private equity firm backed in part by the Chinese government —  to have access to MIPS CPU IP?  More specifically, do the two VCs — which are buying Imagination and MIPS independently — know each other?  Further, by agreeing to sell, has Imagination practically opened the backdoor for Canyon Bridge to access MIPS CPU IP and patents, without review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)?  Imagination Technologies last Friday unveiled two separate deals, in which the Hertfordshire, U.K.-based company sold itself to Canyon Bridge, while simultaneously agreeing to sell MIPS to Tallwood Venture Capital.  China’s long-standing love affair with MIPS is no secret. Chinese vendors have been using MIPS for years and Beijing has reportedly said it wants to use MIPS architecture for all future government-sponsored projects.  Specifics of the deals  First, here are some specifics of last Friday’s announcements.  Imagination announced it is selling itself in an all-cash deal worth 550 million pounds ($742.5 million) to Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, the VC firm whose proposal to buy Lattice Semiconductor was recently blocked by U.S. President Donald Trump.  Imagination announced on the same day that it had agreed to sell the company’s global MIPS CPU business for $65 million to Tallwood Venture Capital, an investment firm with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Wuxi, southern China.  Although a majority of MIPS patents were sold in 2013 to Bridge Crossing, which was created by a member-based patent holding company called Allied Security Trust, all processor-specific patents and the other parts of MIPS Technologies were sold to Imagination.  Imagination explained in its press release that the completion of the MIPS disposal is a condition of Canyon Bridge’s acquisition.  Andrew Heath, CEO of Imagination said, in a statement, “The acquisition [by Canyon Bridge] will ensure that Imagination — with its strong growth prospects — remains an independent IP licensing business, based in the U.K., but operating around the world.”  Had Imagination kept MIPS, Canyon Bridge’s acquisition of Imagination would certainly invite CFIUS scrutiny.  The MIPS CPU business, according to Imagination, includes all MIPS intellectual property and patents. The MIPS IP and patents were developed in the United States and they belong to Imagination's U.S. business unit.  Left unclear at this point is if Imagination’s MIPS divestment to Tallwood might face CFIUS review.  Industry skeptics wonder if Canyon Bridge — already barred by the U.S. government from buying Lattice — plans to put an agreement in place, for example, to get perpetual license of all of MIPS IPs from Tallwood. If so, Canyon Bridge, as one of the Chinese government’s semi-private entities, could at long last get a grip on MIPS.  However, at this point, there is no proof that Imagination might have coordinated the two deals specifically to help Canyon Bridge fly under CFIUS’ radar in its quest for MIPS IPs. Financial deals like this — especially when involving players from the wild, wild East of China — are an elusive quarry for regulators.  Who wants MIPS?  Setting aside Imagination’s IP on GPU and graphics-related expertise, MIPS continues to stir debate in the semiconductor industry about who will ultimately own MIPS CPU assets.  The last time MIPS was up for sale, in 2012, Ceva Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.), a licensor of signal processing IP, sought eagerly to buy the MIPS assets, offering $90 million. MIPS initially agreed. But then, Imagination stepped in, beating Ceva with a $100 million bid.  This time around when Imagination divests MIPS, Ceva would still a likely pursuer of the MIPS assets.  Back in 2012, Synopsys was speculated to be another potential MIPS buyer. Synopsys today offers a family of embedded RISC processors known as ARC, as a result of Synopsys’ acquisition of ARC International in 2010.  But MIPS assets could help bolster its processor portfolio.  When Imagination put MIPS on the block in early May, Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, told us, “MIPS is still a classic CPU design with scalability and an established software ecosystem.” Krewell at that time speculated that a design house (such as Cadence, Mentor or Synopsys) would be tempted.  He added, “It's also possible that a leading customer like Microchip would consider buying out its license. MIPS has also been used by a number of Chinese vendors and it could be bought by a Chinese entity.” In Krewell’s opinion, there's “still an opportunity for MIPS in the market, even though it's a diminished one.”  It is not clear who else, besides Tallwood, was actually in the running to acquire the MIPS assets, and how Imagination came to decide on Tallwood.  Cast of characters  Both Canyon Bridge and Tallwood have high-profile executives who have worked in the U.S. semiconductor industry.  Canyon Bridge was founded by Benjamin Chow, a U.S. citizen born in China. With more than 20 years of private equity, venture capital, senior management and technology R&D experience, Chow is well connected to both China and Silicon Valley.  Chow set up Canyon Bridge in summer 2016 with funding from China Reform Management, a state-owned investment firm that became Canyon Bridge's sole investor, according to Lattice’s regulatory filings.  Another well-known figure at Canyon Bridge is Ray Bingham, a veteran semiconductor industry executive who served as executive chairman of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and chairman of Flextronics.  Reuters reported that Chow approached Bingham last August, believing that a U.S.-based buyout fund with a U.S. partner like Bingham would trigger much less CFIUS scrutiny than a Chinese suitor.  Although Bingham’s reputation in the technology industry helped win the Lattice acquisition for Canyon Bridge, his presence failed to deflect CFIUS scrutiny on Canyon Bridge-Lattice.  Bingham’s involvement with Canyon Bridge also cost him. Bingham stepped down from Cypress's board of directors in June amid a messy proxy fight with the company's founder and longtime CEO, T.J. Rodgers.  Rodgers, who founded Cypress in 1982, filed suit against his former company earlier this year, alleging conflict of interest by Bingham for his ties to Canyon Bridge Partners, which was in the process of acquiring Lattice. Cypress had previously considered an acquisition of Lattice.  On the Tallwood front, general partner Luis Arzubi is an ex-IBMer who spent more than three decades at IBM’s Microelectronics Division. Prior to joining Tallwood, Arzubi served as the unit’s vice president and general manager. He was responsible for all semiconductor business segments at IBM.  Tallwood’s managing partner and founder is Dado Banatao, a familiar face who is known as a visionary in Silicon Valley. Before establishing Tallwood, Banatao was a venture partner at the Mayfield Fund. He co-founded S3, Chips & Technologies and Mostron.  Banatao worked in engineering and general management at National Semiconductor, Seeq Technologies, Intersil and Commodore International.
Release time:2017-09-26 00:00 reading:2577 Continue reading>>
As Apple Jilts Imagination, <span style='color:red'>MIPS</span> Goes on Block
  Imagination Technologies Group disclosed Thursday (May 4) that it has started a "dispute resolution procedure" with Apple, as their negotiations have stalled. With the potential loss of Apple -- which accounts for about half of the U.K.-based company’s revenue -- looming large, Imagination is fighting for its survival.  Not coincidentally, the company revealed plans to sell two businesses. Going on the block are MIPS, whose CPU business is focused on embedded processor market, and Ensigma, which offers IP licensing for connectivity in mobile computing.  These moves mark the end of Imagination’s ambitious dream to compete with its rival ARM as an IP licensing powerhouse with GPU, CPU and connectivity technologies.  Imagination today says it now hopes to “concentrate its resources on PowerVR and strengthen Imagination’s balance sheet.”  Despite Imagination’s stated plan to sell off MIPS and Ensigma to save its PowerVR business, many industry observers believe Imagination might eventually go up for sale.  Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, told EE Times, “I expect that after the issues with Apple are resolved, Imagination itself will be sold. The results of the Apple resolution will determine Imagination's value at that time.”  Disputes with Apple  Imagination said last month that Apple had notified the firm it was developing its own graphics chips, Apple would no longer use Imagination's processing designs in 15 months to two years’ time.  Imagination’s discussions with Apple thus far apparently yielded very little progress. In a statement issued Thursday, the company said, “Imagination has been unable to make satisfactory progress with Apple to date regarding alternative commercial arrangements for the current licence and royalty agreement.” Imagination “has therefore commenced the dispute resolution procedure under the licence agreement with a view to reaching an agreement through a more structured process,” the company added.  Asked what such “a more structured process” entails, an Imagination spokeswoman declined to elaborate.  In April, Imagination expressed doubts that Apple could go it alone without violating Imagination’s patents. Although industry analysts foresaw possible legal action against Apple, sources tell EE Times that Imagination isn’t currently planning any lawsuits.  It’s widely understood that Imagination would face major challenges proving that Apple is infringing Imagination’s graphics engine IP. This is largely because Apple’s own new graphics chips -- which Apple claimed do not use Imagination’s processing designs -- won’t reach the market for more than a year. While Apple has every incentive to stall negotiations, it’s hard to imagine how Imagination could possibly make any breakthrough in discussions with Apple.  Who will buy MIPS?  Over the past month, Imagination’s board reviewed its business composition and decided dump MIPS and Ensigma. Industry debate now shifts inevitably to who might eventually acquire MIPS.  Krewell told us, “MIPS is still a classic CPU design with scalability and an established software ecosystem.” Krewell expects that a design house (such as Cadence, Mentor or Synopsys) will look at it.  He added, “It's also possible that a leading customer like Microchip would consider buying out its license. MIPS has also been used by a number of Chinese vendors and it could be bought by a Chinese entity.” In Krewell’s opinion, there's “still an opportunity for MIPS in the market, even though it's a diminished one.”  Imagination's First Half, FY2017 Results  However, Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, reminded that in the course of MIPS acquisition, the ownership of MIPS IP moved to a consortium which includes ARM.  Indeed, in November, 2012, ARM announced that it is a leading member of Bridge Crossing LLC, "a consortium of major technology companies affiliated with Allied Security Trust, which has entered into an agreement with MIPS to obtain rights to its patent portfolio." At that time, ARM noted that the MIPS patent portfolio includes 580 patents and patent applications covering microprocessor design, system-on-chip design and other related technology fields.  "The consortium will pay $350 million in cash to acquire rights to the portfolio, of which ARM will contribute $167.5 million."  McGregor said, "So, MIPS doesn't even own most of its IP. As a result, I don't see much value here, especially as many customers have moved to ARM."  MIPS, Ensigma businesses  Discussing the company’s half-year financial results (which ended in December 2016),  Imagination explained that MIPS profitability improved. Its royalties also grew 11 percent compared to that of a year ago, based on its volume growth. Licenses, however, remained flat.  The company said, “MIPS has been refocused on the embedded processor markets, where the group is strong.”  MIPS’ design wins have been mainly in networking, routers and DTV/STB, according to the company. “Good progress is also being made in mobile LTE modems, as the Group targets its differentiated technology to customers’ needs.”  Imagination at that time also highlighted “Mobileye’s selection of MIPS I6500 for its latest EyeQ5 product [expected to reach the market in 2018], and Denso’s announcement to collaborate on joint research on hardware multi-threading for next-generation in-vehicle electronic systems.”  Meanwhile, Ensigma is now focused on IP licensing for connectivity covering “the complete end-to-end WiFi and Bluetooth solutions.” Imagination acknowledged that Ensigma has been loss-making, but saw “strong licensing revenues” -- up 2.1 million pounds -- in the first half of FY2017, “by covering R&D costs for the first time.”  Imagination's disclosure last month on the potential loss of Apple as its key customer immediately sent the company's shares down 70 percent and the stock has not recovered since.
Key word:
Release time:2017-05-05 00:00 reading:1122 Continue reading>>

Turn to

/ 1

  • Week of hot material
  • Material in short supply seckilling
model brand Quote
MC33074DR2G onsemi
BD71847AMWV-E2 ROHM Semiconductor
CDZVT2R20B ROHM Semiconductor
RB751G-40T2R ROHM Semiconductor
TL431ACLPR Texas Instruments
model brand To snap up
STM32F429IGT6 STMicroelectronics
TPS63050YFFR Texas Instruments
IPZ40N04S5L4R8ATMA1 Infineon Technologies
BU33JA2MNVX-CTL ROHM Semiconductor
BP3621 ROHM Semiconductor
ESR03EZPJ151 ROHM Semiconductor
Hot labels
ROHM
IC
Averlogic
Intel
Samsung
IoT
AI
Sensor
Chip
About us

Qr code of ameya360 official account

Identify TWO-DIMENSIONAL code, you can pay attention to

AMEYA360 mall (www.ameya360.com) was launched in 2011. Now there are more than 3,500 high-quality suppliers, including 6 million product model data, and more than 1 million component stocks for purchase. Products cover MCU+ memory + power chip +IGBT+MOS tube + op amp + RF Bluetooth + sensor + resistor capacitance inductor + connector and other fields. main business of platform covers spot sales of electronic components, BOM distribution and product supporting materials, providing one-stop purchasing and sales services for our customers.

Please enter the verification code in the image below:

verification code