Arm Under Attack in AI

A dozen rivals emerge, some with big wins

EE Times
4/10/2018 00:01 AM EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nearly a dozen processor cores for accelerating machine-learning jobs on clients are racing for spots in SoCs, with some already designed into smartphones. They aim to get a time-to-market advantage over processor-IP giant Arm that is expected to announce its own soon.

The competition shows that much of the action in machine-learning silicon is shifting to low-power client blocks, according to market watcher Linley Gwennap. However, a race among high-performance chips for the data center is still in its early stages, he told EE Times in a preview of his April 11 keynote for the Linley Processor Conference.

“Arm has dominated the IP landscape for CPUs and taken over for GPUs as well, but this AI engine creates a whole new market for cores, and other companies are getting a head start,” said Gwennap.

The new players getting traction include:

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