- Improvements in chip energy efficiency will turbocharge AI and semiconductor industry with new capabilities in always-on AI devices.
- The new suite of disruptive chip technologies will be promoted through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium to accelerate industry adoption by lowering the design barrier to entry in FD-SOI chips.
- The innovation has been demonstrated by researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS), together with industry partners Soitec and NXP Semiconductors.
Researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS), together with industry partners Soitec and NXP Semiconductors, have demonstrated a new class of silicon systems to enhance the energy efficiency of AI-connected devices by leaps and bounds.
The innovation has been demonstrated in fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology, and can be applied to the design and fabrication of advanced semiconductor components for AI applications which will significantly advance the capabilities of the semiconductor industry.
The new chip technology has the potential to extend the battery life of wearables and smart objects by a factor of 10, support intense computational workloads for use in Internet of Things applications, and halve the power consumption associated with wireless communications with the cloud.
The new suite of disruptive chip technologies will be promoted through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium to accelerate industry adoption by lowering the design barrier to entry in FD-SOI chips.
Improving performance
“IoT devices often operate on a very limited power budget, and hence require extremely low average power to efficiently perform regular tasks such as physical signal monitoring. At the same time, high peak performance is demanded to process occasional signal events with computationally-intensive AI algorithms. Our research uniquely allows us to simultaneously reduce the average power and improve the peak performance,” Professor Massimo Alioto, who is from the NUS College of Design and Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said.
Prof Alioto, who also heads the Green IC group, at the NUS Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the applications are wide-ranging and include smart cities, smart buildings, Industry 4.0, wearables and smart logistics.
Game changer
“The remarkable energy improvements obtained in the FD-fAbrICS program are a game changer in the area of battery-powered AI devices, as they ultimately allow us to move intelligence from conventional cloud to smart miniaturised devices,” Alioto said.
Research conducted by the NUS FD-fAbrICS joint lab showed that their FD-SOI chip technology can be deployed at scale with enhanced design and system integration productivity for lower cost, faster market reach, and rapid industry adoption.
Alioto said the innovation has the potential to accelerate the time to market for key players in Singapore’s semiconductor ecosystem,
“We hope to facilitate the adoption and deployment of our design technologies at scale through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium. This is a significant contribution to the AI and semiconductor industry in Singapore, as it enables a competitive advantage while reducing the overall development cost of FD-SOI systems.”