Ergo 2 enables even larger, more complex neural networks inside edge devices, including transformer networks for language and imaging, while drawing less than 100 milliwatts of compute power
January 3, 2023 – Today, Perceive® unveiled a faster, more powerful addition to the Ergo® product line. The new Ergo 2 AI processor provides the performance needed for more complex use cases, including those requiring transformer models, larger neural networks, multiple networks operating simultaneously, and multimodal inputs, while maintaining industry-leading power efficiency.
Steve Teig, Perceive founder and CEO, explains the market opportunity for the newest Ergo chip.
“With the new Ergo 2 processor, we have expanded our ability to provide device manufacturers with a path to building their most ambitious products,” said Steve. “These can include transformer models for language or visual processing, video processing at higher frame rates, and even combining multiple, large neural networks in a single application.”
Faster, smarter, and still tiny
Ergo 2 runs up to four times faster than Perceive’s first-generation Ergo chip and delivers significantly more processing power than typical chips designed for tiny ML. Now, product developers can leverage advanced neural networks such as YOLOv5, RoBERTa, GANs, and U-Nets to deliver accurate results quickly. All Ergo 2 processing is done on-chip and without external memory for better power efficiency, privacy, and security. Ergo 2 silicon achieves:
- 1,106 inferences per second running MobileNet V2
- 979 inferences per second running ResNet-50
- 115 inferences per second running YoloV5-S
To provide the performance enhancements needed to run these larger networks, the Ergo 2 chip has been designed with a pipelined architecture and unified memory, which improve its flexibility and overall operating efficiency. As a result, Ergo 2 can support higher-resolution sensors and a wider range of applications, including:
- Language processing applications such as speech-to-text and sentence completion
- Audio applications such as acoustic echo cancellation and richer audio event detection
- Demanding video processing tasks such as video super resolution and pose detection.
With a 7 mm by 7 mm footprint, the Ergo 2 processor is manufactured by GlobalFoundries using the 22FDX™ platform and is designed to operate without requiring external DRAM. Its low power draw also means it doesn’t need cooling.
The chip can run multiple heterogeneous networks simultaneously, enabling intelligent video and audio features for devices such as enterprise-grade cameras for security, access control, thermal imaging, or retail video analytics; for industrial use cases including visual inspection; or for integration into consumer products such as laptops, tablets, and advanced wearables.
Ready for integration with development platform and model zoo
To support building solutions for each product developer’s needs, Perceive provides a comprehensive suite of tools, including an ML toolchain that massively compresses and optimizes neural networks to run on Ergo 2, a software development kit for building embedded applications using Ergo 2, and a model zoo with example networks and applications to accelerate the development process.
About Perceive Corporation
Perceive makes devices smarter. The company develops breakthrough neural network inference solutions that push the performance-accuracy-power envelope, while protecting the security and privacy of consumers. By bringing datacenter-class accuracy and performance to the edge, Perceive enables device makers to deliver smarter products that understand their environment and respond intelligently. Founded in 2018, Perceive is a majority-owned subsidiary of Xperi Inc. and is based in San Jose, California. For more information, visit https://www.perceive.io.
