Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On March 28, 2023, Amou Technology (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Amou Technology") officially released the self-developed new generation of artificial intelligence processor "Zhouyi" X2 NPU. As another masterpiece of Amou Technology's self-developed IP, the Zhouyi X2 NPU has not only greatly improved its computing power, accuracy and flexibility, but also specially optimized for on-board, edge computing and other application scenarios, providing a more perfect solution for the iterative computing requirements in emerging fields. With the launch of the "Book of changes" X2 NPU, Amou Technology officially released the "Book of changes" NPU software open source plan to meet customers' more independent and flexible algorithm migration needs through open source, and join hands with partners to build the domestic NPU industry ecology.

Liu Renchen, joint CEO of Amou Technology, said: "the Zhouyi X2 NPU fully embodies the concept, ability and practice of Amou Technology in continuously deepening local research and development and enabling industrial innovation, and will better support the landing application of artificial intelligence. At the same time, the construction of artificial intelligence products needs to rely on the power of "ecology" extensively, and the open source plan of NPU software in Zhouyi will be the key strategy for us to try to build ecology with our partners. In the future, on the one hand, we will continue to consolidate the technology base and continue to actively build self-research IP and core technologies; on the other hand, we will more actively expand the industrial ecology and work with partners to win-win smart era. "

A new generation of intelligent computing core "core", enabling high-performance AI computing

Nowadays, with the rapid development of intelligent car industry and edge computing, whether the resolution is from 720p to 4K, or from single-channel image to multi-channel image fusion analysis, the demand for AI computing power in various scenarios increases exponentially.

As a new generation of artificial intelligence processor, Zhouyi X2 NPU adopts the third-generation Zhouyi architecture and supports multi-core Cluster, up to 320TOPS subsystem. Real-time hardware task management enables the Zhouyi X2 NPU to achieve task scheduling of up to 10 million times per second, which optimizes the performance of each computing unit. While the computing power is greatly improved, the X2 NPU of the Book of changes also has higher accuracy and flexibility. In terms of accuracy, the X2 NPU of the Book of changes supports int4 / int8 / int12 / int16 / int32,fp16 / bf16 / fp32 multi-precision fusion calculation, and the computational efficiency and density are significantly improved. In terms of flexibility, Zhouyi X2 NPU not only supports custom operators and meets various model deployment requirements, but also provides customized AI solutions for various application scenarios to further meet customers' differentiated needs in smart driving, mobile phone image AI processing, human-computer interaction and other scenarios.

Figure 1: major function upgrade of X2 NPU in the Book of changes

The X2 NPU of the Book of changes has made a large number of performance optimizations for subdivided application scenarios such as ADAS, intelligent cockpit, tablets, desktops and mobile phones, which can greatly improve the high-resolution image processing capability of mobile phones in photography and video recording, as well as the performance of applications such as Transformer commonly used in vehicles. At the same time, i-Tiling technology is used to greatly reduce bandwidth requirements and further improve computing efficiency. Make it easier for customers to respond to iterative and diverse computing needs.

Liu Shu, executive vice president of Amou Technology and head of product research and development, said: "at present, the emergence of AIGC-like applications makes artificial intelligence attract the attention of the industry again, and excellent AI products cannot do without the operational support of NPU.' Zhouyi'X2 NPU not only inherits and promotes the features and advantages of strong computing power, easy deployment and programmability, but also further enriches the layout of Amou Technology heterogeneous computing matrix. With the landing of the Zhouyi X2 NPU, we hope that while continuing our customers' previous R & D and software investment on the Zhouyi platform, we can better help them design excellent products that meet the needs of the intelligent computing era. "

In order to help developers transplant and debug algorithms more conveniently and quickly, Zhouyi X2 NPU also provides a set of perfect artificial intelligence software platform, which can better meet the needs of developers for performance tuning and system deployment. At present, the "Book of changes" X2 NPU has been officially delivered to customers, and this year there will be a number of chip products equipped with "Book of changes" X2 NPU.

Release of the "Book of changes" NPU software open source plan, NPU research and development is no longer a "repeat wheel"

With the launch of the "Book of changes" X2 NPU, Amou Technology officially released the "Book of changes" NPU software open source plan, and updated the latest progress of the ecological partnership program. As an important measure based on global ecology and deeply ploughing local innovation, Amou Technology, on the one hand, works with more developers and partners to build domestic NPU industrial ecology through open source. On the other hand, we should jointly build upstream and downstream industrial ecology with partners in the form of strategic cooperation, product technical support and project cooperation, and jointly promote the development of software and hardware, tool chains, industry standards and community alliances in various fields.

Under the NPU software open source program of the Book of changes, Amou Technology has taken the lead in opening up NPU intermediate presentation layer specifications, model parsers, model optimizers, drivers, etc., and has provided the Zhouyi Compass software platform to relevant partners, including software simulators, debuggers, C compilers and other software tools. It not only meets the needs of partners' more independent and flexible algorithm migration, but also further improves the efficiency of software development and avoids repeated wheel building. It is reported that the above is only the "Book of changes" NPU software open source plan of the first step, Amou Technology will gradually open up more resources, such as model quantification, operator implementation and other source code.

Figure 2: NPU software deployment in the Book of changes

Up to now, with the complete tool chain and technical services, the first batch of partners have taken the lead in the NPU software open source project of the Book of changes, including star enterprises from AIoT, smart cars, intelligent operating systems and other fields.

Around the complete heterogeneous computing matrix, Amou Technology continues to accelerate the pace of ecological construction on the basis of global ecology and local innovation. Similarly, as an important initiative of enabling partners, Amou launched the Ecological Partnership Program in July 2022. So far, a number of head chip design companies, solution providers and system platform companies have joined in smart cars, AIoT, terminals and other fields. Based on this plan, Amou Technology works with partners to promote the innovation and prosperity of China's intelligent computing ecology by means of product technology exchange, technical cooperation expansion and ecological marketing promotion.

Partner testimony:

(sort by the first letter of Chinese pinyin of the company name)

"for a long time, Amou Technology has been an important partner of this core technology. Based on global ecology and local innovation, Amou Technology has built self-developed IP and Arm IP into an integrated, high-quality heterogeneous computing platform, which can provide diversified solutions to meet the needs of practical scenarios. As a general smart chip company committed to the development of compatible Arm instructions, we are very optimistic about the core technical strength of Amou Technology and hope that the two sides will continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation to jointly promote the innovation and development of the domestic Arm CPU industry. " Sun Wenjian, CEO of this core technology

"Amou Technology has a deep understanding of the needs and challenges of the intelligent car market, and its self-developed 'Zhouyi' X series NPU is highly compatible with the demand for core chip products. Core Technology focuses on providing high-performance, highly reliable car gauge chips for future smart travel.' Zhouyi'X series NPU has the characteristics of high performance, high energy efficiency and flexible configuration. The new product to be released by Xinchi will perfectly realize the landing of artificial intelligence in intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving field. In the future, the two sides will continue to work together to innovate, combine their own superior resources, and explore better application scenario solutions to better serve the differentiated needs of automotive manufacturers' gauge-level chips. " Qiu Yujing, CEO of Xinchi Technology

"as an automotive intelligent technology company, Yikatong Technology has gained a lot of support and achievements in the Amou technology ecology. Core Technology, which is jointly invested by both sides, has released the world's leading 7nm gauge-class cockpit SoC' vehicle cockpit No.1, and will mass-produce multi-brands and models this year. With the increasing demand of users for smart cars, in the field of intelligent driving / cabin driving and central computing platform, Yigatong Technology will continue to carry out in-depth technical exchanges and cutting-edge insight with Amou Technology, and join hands with upstream and downstream ecological partners to jointly promote the development of China's smart car industry. " Du Ping, President of Yijiatong Technology China

Amou Technology is the largest IP development and service provider for chip design in China. I would like to thank Amou Technology for its long-term support to China Kechuangda, which has helped us achieve fruitful results in business areas such as smart driving. I am very glad to see that Amou Technology has launched a new product self-developed by Zhouyi X2. In the future, we hope to continue in-depth cooperation with Amou Technology in self-research IP and Arm IP to help the rapid landing of domestic smart driving projects. " -- Geng Qiang, president of Zhongke Chuangda

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