Microprocessors

Barcelona-based Semidynamics is aiming at next-generation AI chips and algorithms such as transformer with intellectual property called ‘All-In-One AI’. Rather than having on the same IC a multi-core CPU, a multi-core GPU for vector processing and a multi-core neural processor for tensor processing, it is advocating multiple instances of a block consisting of one out-of-order 64bit RISC-V CPU, one (GPU-like) ...

u-blox has announced four stamp-sized wireless MCU modules that can run user code and support Bluetooth LE 5.4, Thread, Matter and PSA Certified Level 3 security. ALMA-B10x versions are built around Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF54H20 wireless microcontrollers and have dual 320MHz Arm Cortex-M33 cores, dual 320MHz RISC-V cores, plus 2Mbyte of non-volatile memory and 1Mbyte ram. They also support NFC-A. NORA-B20x ...

Resasas has put its in-house developed 32bit RISC-V core into a few-pin general-purpose MCU series, following earlier RISC-V projects with Anders and SiFive. Announced last November, the core implementation can accommodate various standard RISC-V options, to which Renesas has added its own options including: a stack monitor register to protect against rogue software, a dynamic branch prediction unit improve the ...

Renesas has added a 24bit ΣΔ (sigma-delta) ADC to a 48 MHz Arm Cortex-M23 microprocessor, as well as dual-bank code flash for over-the-air firmware updates. “RA2A2 devices offer multiple power structures and voltage detection hardware to realise energy-efficient operation as low as 100µA/MHz in active mode, and 0.40µA in software stand-by mode,” according to the company. “An independent power supply ...

STMicroelectronics is emphasising power consumption and security for a range of 56MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontrollers. Called STM32U0, the “MCUs can reduce energy consumption by up to 50% compared to previous product generations”, said the company. It “allows more designs to go battery-free, running solely from an energy-harvesting system such as a small photovoltaic cell”. On the same day, ST announced ...

As accelerated computing reaches its tipping point, Nvidia’s CEO explained the company’s plan is not to drive down costs but to scale up performance. He was speaking at Nvidia GTC in San Jose, introducing the Blackwell AI superchip. It will democratise trillion parameter AI, promises Huang, to meet the 1.8 trillion parameters computing performance of accelerated computing. In the home ...

Renesas is aiming at industrial robots with a microcontroller that combines AI vision and real-time control processing. Called RZ/V2H, the ICs include the company’s DRP-AI3 ‘dynamically reconfigurable processor’ AI accelerator – recently revealed at ISSCC in San Francisco – in 10Top/s/W form. “Pruning technology employed in the DRP-AI3 accelerator improves AI computing efficiency, boosting inference performance to 80Top/s,” according to ...

Nvidia has added to the Ada Lovelace architecture-based family of laptop GPUs, with the RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation laptop GPUs for portable mobile workstations. As with the recently released RTX 2000 (Electronics Weekly RTX 2000 Ada GPU meets AI visualisation demands (electronicsweekly.com),the GPUs have both an NPU (neural processing unit) and the company’s RTX GPU, with Tensor cores ...

Microchip is aiming at motor control by combining a triple half-bridge mosfet gate driver, a 100MHz processor and CAN FD transceivers in the same IC. Other members of the family offer LIN transceivers instead of CAN, or a CAN interface without transceivers, or no CAN or LIN, and a base model has a 70MHz processor. Some have SENT interfaces for ...

NXP has fleshed out the MCX A microcontroller series it announced in 2022. The ‘A’ series is the lower-cost branch of the MCX family, and like other MCX MCUs, the devices are built around an Arm Cortex-M33 core – this is the security-enabled M3. The first parts are MCX A14x (48MHz core) and MCX A15x (96MHz core), which come in ...