The November 2022 entry in Slide 15 (RadNeuro Maturation Timeline) refers to "Rad-tolerant FPGA neural cores developed with selected partners (eg, Brainchip)".
Slide 16 is a continuation of Slide 15, and gives the timeline for fabrication of a full-scale Rad-Tolerant Neuro-processor as 36 months possibly with September 2023 as the datum, which is a long time to hold one's breath.
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Given that Akida already exists, all that is required is for Vorago to tweak the IP by adjusting a few dimensions, or even just specifying a larger chip architecture, eg, 48 nm.
If it is just a matter of increasing the architecture, then the tape-out is already there.
Hi Diogenese
Something I find very strange is that a new wombat turned up on HC a couple of days ago after Tom & Jerry and another poster who shall remain nameless for reasons related to the Devil and Black Magic claiming that another company had replaced Brainchip AKIDA at NASA and was so sensational it was going to kill off Nvidia.
This poster was dismissed as another ratbag immediately. Then the same discussion commences over here on TSEx in a sensible fashion and you laid out all the intelligent reasons why such an assertion was not founded in fact.
What I thought stood out from the RadNeuro documents which as you know were previously posted months ago was the following paragraph:
“November 2022: Rad-tolerant FPGA neural cores developed with selected partners (e.g., Brainchip). Integration with radiation-tolerant configuration and synaptic memory. Radiation and functional testing through January 2023”
The significance I think comes from the actual wording and the fact that it was posted back in 2022 that Vorago (a selected partner by NASA for Brainchip) had submitted a radhard design for an AKIDA FPGA under their Phase 1 SBIR and sought funding in a Phase 11 to move on to actually produce a Hardsil Radhard AKIDA FPGA proof of concept. We have never had confirmation of this application being approved.
(It might jog your memory if I mention the LinkedIn statement of the Vorago CEO that AKIDA was going to permit the Rover to achieve NASA’s target speed of 20kph.)
Anyway going back to the extracted paragraph you will see there is a full stop after the bracketed word “(Brainchip).”
What I think is that this is acknowledging the AKIDA FPGA has already been made radhard by Brainchip’s selected partner Vorago.
Further remember the Numem Phase 1 SBIR that was to prove out if the SRAM memory of AKIDA could be replaced by or supplemented with RRam. I know you commented on the fact that the Nemum Phase 1 had closed and that we would probably not hear any more.
Well I am putting all this together with the next sentence in the above extract “Integration with radiation-tolerant configuration and synaptic memory” to suggest this NASA, Brainchip, Vorago, Numem puzzle has been put together for us in this paragraph.
What do you think?
My opinion only DYOR
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