Renesas develops AI accelerator for lightweight models
Summary
Amid the recent spread of robots into factories, logistics, medical services, and stores, there is a growing need for systems that can autonomously run in real time by detecting surroundings using advanced vision AI. That is why Renesas introduced a dynamically reconfigurable processor (DRP), which handles complex processing, in addition to the CPU and AI accelerator (DRP-AI). This led to the development of heterogeneous architecture technology that enables higher speeds and lower power consumption in AI-MPUs by distributing and parallelising processes appropriately. A DRP runs an application while dynamically changing the circuit connection configuration between the arithmetic units inside the chip for each operation clock according to the processing details. Utilising these results helps solve heat generation due to increased power consumption, which has been one of the challenges associated with the implementation of AI chips in a variety of embedded devices such as service robots and automated guided vehicles.