Mythic Starts Sampling an "Analog Computing" Deep Learning Accelerator Boasting 35 TOPS at 4W
Combining storage and analog processing into a single device, the M1108 claims a tenfold price advantage over digital equivalents.
Mythic has announced the first product in its vision to bring back analog computing as a means of offering low-power high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration at the edge — though it's presently only sampling to select customers.
"This is a significant inflection point in the industry. We are delivering technology that was previously thought to be impossible," claims Mike Henry, co-founder, chief executive, and chairman of Mythic, of the M1108 the company is now sampling. "Our Analog Compute Engine eliminates the memory bottlenecks that plague digital solutions by efficiently performing matrix multiplication directly inside the flash memory array itself. The high performance and low power of the Mythic AMP combine to open up AI technology to broader application areas and address product categories that are currently inaccessible to comparable digital solutions."
The M1108 is the first in a planned family of Analog Matrix Processors (AMPs), which perform in-storage computation to reduce latency and power demands for deep learning workloads. The chip incorporates 108 AMP tiles, each which includes Mythic's in-house Analog Compute Engine (ACE) with flash storage and analog to digital conversion (ADC) included, a 32-bit processor based on the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA), static RAM, and a network-on-chip (NOC) router. An additional four control tiles per chip provides an interface to the host system, over PCI Express 2.0.
Built on a 40nm process node, the company claims the M1108 delivers 45 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of compute performance at a 4W loaded power draw. Further, the company says its analog architecture offers a tenfold cost advantage over traditional digital AI acceleration engines — though it has yet to back this claim up with any pricing for the parts.
Mythic is currently sampling the part in an evaluation kit form, with plans to release both full-size PCI Express and more compact PCIe M.2 form factor accelerators. Pricing and timing for full availability have not been provided, but interested parties can contact Mythic for more information via the company's official website.