Ultra-low power analogue processing units

Mythic has chosen memBrain neuromorphic hardware intellectual property (IP) from Microchip Technology’s Silicon Storage Technology (SST) subsidiary for its next-generation edge to enterprise Analog Processing Units (APUs).

Mythic will utilise SST’s SuperFlash embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) bitcells to deliver high levels of analog compute-in-memory (aCIM) performance per watt. The partnership enables Mythic to achieve 120 TOPS/watt inference processing for power-efficient AI acceleration at the edge and in the data center: Mythic’s APUs are targeted to be up to 100 times more energy-efficient than conventional digital Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

One hundred fifty billion units of SST SuperFlash technology that Mythic is licensing have been shipped to date. SuperFlash technology is the de facto eNVM solution for a broad spectrum of industries including industrial, automotive, consumer and computing for critical data and code storage, and is licensed by all of the top ten semiconductor foundries worldwide.

The memBrain cell features:

• Up to 8 data bits per bitcell (8 bpc) storage
• Single-digit nanoamp (nA) bitcell read current
• 10-year data retention at operating temperature
• 100,000 endurance cycles
• Full state machine control of the 8 bpc multi-state write operation
• Single cycle multiply-and-accumulate operations for aCIM

SST’s memBrain technology has been developed and deployed in 40nm and 28nm foundry processes using production-ready SuperFlash memory. 22nm memBrain development is planned to extend the technology roadmap. Designed to provide reliable, high-performance and low-power non-volatile storage directly on the chip, SuperFlash memory is widely used in applications that require fast access times, high endurance and data retention without the need for external memory components.