Imec and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Announce Breakthrough in AI Chip

LEUVEN, Belgium, and SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 9, 2020 – Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF), a specialty foundry, announced a hardware demonstration of a new artificial intelligence chip. Based on imec's Analog in Memory Computing (AiMC) architecture utilizing GF's 22FDX solution, the new chip is optimized to perform deep neural network calculations on in-memory computing hardware in the analog domain. Achieving record-high energy efficiency up to 2,900 TOPS/W, the accelerator is a key enabler for inference-on-the-edge for low-power devices. The privacy, security and latency benefits of this new technology will have an impact on AI applications in a wide range of edge devices, from smart speakers to self-driving vehicles. Since the early days of the digital computer age, the processor has been separated from the memory.