BRN Discussion Ongoing

[Fact Finder]

I have read a number of posts which seem to over state the importance of AKD1500 and dismiss the achievements of AKD1000.

To do so in my technophobe opinion is to completely misrepresent or misunderstand the AKIDA technology Revolution.

There is only one AKIDA. AKIDA is the neural fabric which is made up of severable nodes.

AKD1000 & AKD1500 are made or cut from the exact same fabric.

Renesas purchased 2 nodes of the AKIDA neural fabric IP.

MegaChips purchased 80 nodes of the AKIDA neural fabric IP.

If AKD1000 is a dud as some imply then AKD1500 is a dud.

Both AKD1000 & AKD1500 are demonstration chips built to prove a point.

AKD1000 was built to prove AKIDA technology can be a BEAST and out perform GPU’s if need be and run all five sensors plus Radar, Lidar and Ultrasonics on a 28nm chip using an ARM 4 CPU for peripherals.

AKD1500 is being built on 22nm by a US Defence approved foundry to prove it is flexible and can run without the ARM 4 CPU.

Everything achieved to date including partnerships and close to $5 million in license fees has been off the back of being able to demonstrate AKIDA science fiction using AKD1000.

Stop and think for one moment. Brainchip sells IP.

You can buy one node or as many as you like.

You can add the IP to your existing chip or build one exclusively running the AKIDA IP.

The names AKD1000 & AKD1500 are simply a convenience.

End of rant.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

 

[Bravo]

And this which I forgot to circle...

 

[Deadpool]

BrainChip Expands Its Ecosystem with Teksun to Bring the Akida Processor to Next-Generation AIoT Devices​

3/1/2023​

LAGUNA HILLS, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 1, 2023 / BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX:BRN)(OTCQX:BRCHF)(ADR:BCHPY), the world's first commercial producer of ultra-low power, fully digital, event-based, neuromorphic AI IP, today announced that Teksun has joined its Essential AI Ecosystem. The partnership will begin the process of incorporating BrainChip's neuromorphic technology into a broad range of AI-featured devices that demand efficient and cost-effective performance.

Teksun focuses on end-to-end IoT & AI product development and enables differentiated intelligent solutions, such as predictive and preventative maintenance in industrial applications, analytics and diagnostics for digital healthcare, automotive, and vision-based devices for security and surveillance, to name a few. The partnership between the two companies will demonstrate and proliferate BrainChip's technology through Teksun product development channels.

"Teksun is committed to innovation and dedicated to providing our customers with the most advanced IoT solutions," said Brijesh Kamani - Founder & CEO of Teksun. "With BrainChip's Akida processor, we will be able to deliver next-generation AIoT devices that are faster, more efficient, and more intelligent than ever before and not just meet, but exceed the expectations of our customers."

The Akida neural processor Al IP is an event-based technology that is inherently lower power when compared to conventional neural network accelerators. BrainChip IP supports incremental learning, on-chip learning, and high-speed inference with unsurpassed performance in micro watt to milli-watt power budgets. Among the markets that BrainChip's Essential AI technology will impact are the next generation of intelligent vehicles, smart homes of today and tomorrow, medicine, and industrial IoT.

"The Akida processor is a revolutionary computing architecture that is designed to process neural networks and machine learning algorithms at ultra-low power for edge computing applications, where resources and bandwidth are at a premium," said Sean Hehir, BrainChip CEO. "Teksun is a leader in the IoT industry, and we are confident that our partnership will enable them to deliver advanced solutions that will change the way we live, work, and interact with technology."

About BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN, OTCQX: BRCHF, ADR: BCHPY)
BrainChip is the worldwide leader in edge AI on-chip processing and learning. The company's first-to-market, fully digital, event-based AI processor, AkidaTM, uses neuromorphic principles to mimic the human brain, analyzing only essential sensor inputs at the point of acquisition, processing data with unparalleled efficiency, precision, and economy of energy. Akida uniquely enables edge learning local to the chip, independent of the cloud, dramatically reducing latency while improving privacy and data security. Akida Neural processor IP, which can be integrated into SoCs on any process technology, has shown substantial benefits on today's workloads and networks, and offers a platform for developers to create, tune and run their models using standard AI workflows like Tensorflow/Keras. In enabling effective edge compute to be universally deployable across real world applications such as connected cars, consumer electronics, and industrial IoT, BrainChip is proving that on-chip AI, close to the sensor, is the future, for its customers' products, as well as the planet. Explore the benefits of Essential AI at www.brainchip.com.

Follow BrainChip on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/BrainChip_inc

Follow BrainChip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/7792006

Media Contact:
Mark Smith
JPR Communications
818-398-1424

Investor Relations:

I reckon that when Mr Brijesh Kamani left the offices of BRN he was humming-


Obviously Mr Kamani is another great business man, well ahead of the curve.
From their web site
Brijesh Kamani has successfully spearheaded engagements for Fortune 500 companies for end-to-end product development and handled long-range & high-yield projects. As CEO of Teksun, Brijesh’s decades of experience are spread over various industries across multiple domains. He has lent his expertise in Product Engineering, Software Development, and Embedded System Development.

With a futuristic approach to every domain, he makes sure Teksun keeps up with the highest standards of the industry and meets customers’ expectations. Brijesh received his Masters in Technology from Birla Institute Of Technology and Science and studied Bachelor of Engineering at Ahmedabad Institute of Technology.

 

[Quiltman]

From CES2023.

Seems like Teksun is a great addition to the "partner ecosystem".
I know, I know, not a commercial contract ... I'm over it already .

Didn't Sean outline the first year or so of his tenure would be about building the partnership ecosystem as the commercial enabler of AI ubiquity for BrainChip and Akida. Seems to be delivering in spades to me.

 

[Slade]

I think there is some confusion between the deal that Brainchip has with Renesas and Megachips, and the deal they have with their technology partners SiFive and Arm. I’m not going to pretend that I know much about it other than they are very different arrangements and the lack of an IP purchase by SiFive or Arm does not worry me. I think it is very reasonable to assume that Brainchip is making good progress with their collaboration with Arm and SiFive. Time will tell.

 

[skutza]

My thoughts are that someone like Prophesee is working with Brainchip and as Luca said (to Jesse?) that while it's currently just a partnership he thought it would turn commercial or something like this?

So that is probably the same with Mercedes and others also, they are tinkering around with AKIDA IP and seeing the best uses for it. Once they are set into the idea of using and going into production, then they'll likely sign on the dotted line. No point (in their eyes) signing up early when they currently haven't got concreate plans on how many uses they'll have it for. Lots to think about before going all in.

That's how I see it, but like the rest of us, nobody here can see the inner workings of the NDA's or deals moving forward. For every NDA or partnership that we keep reading about, what % are going to end up in a deal? Surely 10% minimum? Therefore I already own an island

 

[Dhm]

I think there is some confusion between the deal that Brainchip has with Renesas and Megachips, and the deal they have with their technology partners SiFive and Arm. I’m not going to pretend that I know much about it other than they are very different arrangements and the lack of an IP purchase by SiFive or Arm does not worry me. I think it is very reasonable to assume that Brainchip is making good progress with their collaboration with Arm and SiFive. Time will tell.

We are currently second in Arms partner ecosystem defined by ‘Relevance’.

 

[Bravo]

It's all about the motion blur.

Say sayonara to blurry photos thanks to this sharp camera tech​

Blur-free action and low-light snaps? Yes please, and it's all possible with this Prophesee and Qualcomm partnership.
By Robert Triggs
•
February 28, 2023

Prophesee
Motion blur is the curse of even the best smartphone cameras, but not for long. At MWC 2023, sensor designer Prophesee partnered with Qualcomm to bring its “event-based” Metavision technology to Snapdragon platforms and, therefore, future smartphones. Farewell, blurry pet photos, unusable sports action shots, and smudged low-light snaps.
Prophesee’s journey began with custom image sensor hardware designed specially to track motion within a scene, and that’s the key to what makes Metavision so promising. The technology doesn’t capture images like a traditional image sensor, instead calculating the direction and amount of motion to produce a map of moving pixels. This is accomplished by tracking when a pixel changes rather than capturing a full image frame-by-frame like a traditional camera.

While this has useful applications as is, particularly for computer vision, Prophesee pairs this data with a traditional camera image sensor for mobile applications. The company has previously partnered with Sony to integrate two IMX mobile sensors for use with a Metavision sensor, while the new partnership with Qualcomm provides the necessary processing platform.

Prophesee
Working with Qualcomm now allows Snapdragon platforms, such as the 8 Gen 1 we saw running the demo, to plug into Prophesee’s event-based sensor setup to read the necessary data. Images are then corrected for motion blur using Snapdragon’s AI/DSP processing capabilities before feeding a Bayer image back into the ISP to apply traditional color correction. That all sounds complicated, but the result is a blur-free snap, and, based on what we saw in real time, it works exactly as well as the image above.
There are some limitations to Prophesee’s early implementation, however. A single event-based Metavision sensor can only work with one perfectly matched focal length RGB camera at the moment. This is due to pixel count limitations, so that rules out correcting main, ultrawide, and telephoto lenses with a single event-based sensor, at least in the near future. The current sensor supports a maximum resolution of 12MP (after binning). That’s plenty for virtually all of today’s phone sensors, but, unfortunately, it does mean we won’t yet see the same benefits on larger resolution snaps.
Still, that doesn’t negate the promise of blur-free snaps and potentially more use cases that Prophesee hopes to unlock in the future. A development kit featuring compatibility with Prophesee sensor technologies is expected to be available this year. The company is in talks with OEMs too, but we’ll have to sit tight for any smartphones sporting event-based blur correction.

Say sayonara to blurry photos thanks to this sharp camera tech

Prophesee has partnered with Qualcomm to bring event-based image sensors and motion blur correction to future smartphones. We tested it out.

www.androidauthority.com

 

[Steve10]

Some examples of ARM licence agreements.

Samsung, June 2015

Newsroom | Business Wire

The global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Public relations and investor relations professionals rely on Business Wire for broad-based and targeted market reach.

www.businesswire.com

Broadcom, February 2011

Newsroom | Business Wire

The global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Public relations and investor relations professionals rely on Business Wire for broad-based and targeted market reach.

www.businesswire.com

Microsoft, July 2010

New Microsoft, ARM licensing agreement; Could a Windows Phone tablet be coming?

Microsoft and ARM announced on July 23 that the two have signed a new licensing agreement for the ARM architecture, extending the relationship between the two companies. The pair aren't sharing any details, but I can't but wonder if this could signal Microsoftand its PC partners delivering...

www.zdnet.com

Intel, February 1998

Intel And ARM Agree To License Agreement

Nvidia, May 2005

NVIDIA, ARM Announce Licensing Agreement Targeted At Next-Generation Consumer Devices

NVIDIA Corporation, a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, and ARM, today announced that NVIDIA has licensed the ARM11 MPCore processor. The licensing of this ARM technology will enable NVIDIA to add application processing functionality to its outstanding graphics and...

phys.org

IBM, October 2013

IBM Licenses ARM For Networking Chips

ARM secures new processor licensing agreements with IBM and Chinese semiconductor provider Spreadtrum to continue its worldwide growth in network and communications markets.

www.datacenterknowledge.com

From September 2014:

1. TECHNOLOGY

September 1, 2014

50th licensing agreement gives ARM a reason to celebrate​

ARMv8-A technology attracts big names in tablet and smartphone market.
By Ben Sullivan

British chip expert ARM is celebrating the signing of the fiftieth licensing agreement for its ARMv8-A technology.

A total of 27 companies have signed agreements for the technology which aims to build industry momentum for greater compute capability across applications. ARMv8-A includes support for 64-bit computing.

ARM sells blueprints for processor designs, in turn receiving royalties for every chip sold.

According to ARM, some of the technology’s users include all of the top 10 companies who sell application processors for smartphones, 9 of the top 10 application processor companies for tablets, and 4 of the top 5 companies that provide chips for consumer electronics.

Noel Hurley, general manager of the processor division at ARM, said: "ARMv8-A technology brings multiple benefits, including 64-bit capability alongside improved efficiency of existing 32-bit applications.

"Tablets and smartphones are quickly replacing PCs for many tasks and the ARMv8-A Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53-based chips developed by our Partners support this transition with important enhancements in performance and efficiency. These ARMv8-A platforms are also fully backward compatible and will efficiently execute over a million 32-bit apps and extensive software assets already in use."

The company began developing its ARMv8-A architecture design in 2007. First announced in November 2011, the cumulative 50 licenses are now spread across ARMv8-A architecture and ARM Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 processors.

In July, ARM announced a 9% rise in its second-quarter profits, pinning its growth on processor licensing despite a slowdown in smartphone sales.


If BRN Akida is the real deal then expect to see numerous licence agreements.

Akida is now in evaluation mode & new product development by customers. When it's time to produce chips will be licence time similar to Renesas & MegaChips.

Expect to see the likes of Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm, Prophesee, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, IBM, Lenovo etc to all be licenced in future if Akida tech is suitable.

 

[DingoBorat]

I think there is some confusion between the deal that Brainchip has with Renesas and Megachips, and the deal they have with their technology partners SiFive and Arm. I’m not going to pretend that I know much about it other than they are very different arrangements and the lack of an IP purchase by SiFive or Arm does not worry me. I think it is very reasonable to assume that Brainchip is making good progress with their collaboration with Arm and SiFive. Time will tell.

I'm also not sure what all the concerns about "lack" of IP licences are ..

MegaChips has a full IP licence!

Can anyone tell me who MegaChip's customers are, other than Nintendo??
They are very tight lipped about it and this marrys in very well, with Brainchip's "potential" customers, wanting the secret sauce of AKIDA, to remain secret!

This from the original IP licence announcement.

"MegaChips is able to quickly and easily maintain its industry innovator status by supplying solutions and applications that leverage the revolutionary Akida technology to high growth markets such as (not only) automotive, IoT, cameras (do phones have cameras?), gaming and industrial robotics"

A classic example is Apple.
They may have not dealt with MegaChips before, but they are an open door, to keeping any association with BrainChip, under wraps.

In December 2021, I rang Tony Dawe and among other things wanted to confirm that Mercedes would need to purchase an IP licence, if they were to use AKIDA.
He didn't really answer my question, but the next thing he said, is that I should re-read the MegaChips announcement.

Having said all that, I do expect MosChips to aquire a full IP licence at some stage..

Technically, we wouldn't "need" any others.


Great new partnership announcement today, with Teksun!

Another stone in the foundation has been laid and we seem to be building a mighty strong one!

How tall will the BrainChip skyscraper be??

 

[Steve10]

When it's time for Nviso's in cabin system for Mercedes then Nviso may require a licence agreement.

Alternatively, since Nviso are using Nvidia Jetson together with Akida it would be easier for Nvidia Jetson to embed the Akida IP. Then Nvidia will require a licence agreement.

Nviso are currently developing digital AI avatars for kiosks in Japan for UNT. Not sure if they will be using Akida for this application.

emotion3D are also in the motor vehicle in-cabin market similar to Nviso.

ARM's recent quarterly revenue was made up of 40% licencing fees & 60% royalties.

Licencing fees were USD $300M for the recent quarter. That's $23M per week. BRN would break even with 1 week of ARM's licencing revenue.

 

[manny100]

I pretty sure SOCIONEXT announced they have a few products with akida IP in them (the CES 2023 announcement below)

View this email in your browser

Book a Meeting Brainchip invites you to join us at CES 2023 January 5-8, 2023, in Las Vegas, NV to experience our advanced, hyper-efficient, event-based AI technology in action, bringing the future to edge AI devices. Akida’s unique AI approach is built on applied neuromorphic principles that enables inference and learning, untethered from the cloud in energy-constrained edge devices. It efficiently accelerates today’s models and is ready for future trends. Most importantly, it supports frameworks and flows that developers are very familiar with, so tuning for Akida platforms is seamless and Brainchip partners like Renesas are integrating Akida technology into their platforms. At CES a few of our partners are demonstrating this technology: Socionext (North Hall, booth 10564): Automotive solutions for remote display, RADAR and embedded sensing and cabin monitoring. Socionext will demonstrate it’s highly integrated ISO26262-certified SC1721/ SC1722/ SC1723 Series Graphics Display Controllers feature built-in safety mechanisms that enable error-free, safety-critical content to meet the safety standards required by today’s multi-display cockpit applications. Socionext has created a variety of smart RADAR solutions, including 24GHz and 60GHz, and has developed a roadmap showcasing future technologies features and capabilities to support multiple in-cabin uses, including seat occupancy monitoring, child presence detection, and theft prevention. Prophesee (The Venetian Hotel): Edge learning on device for complex visuals. Prophesee will demonstrate the alignment of their event-based vision systems with the unique, intelligent edge-learning capabilities of Akida. This enables learning of gestures on device without storing data on device or on cloud - an important aspect of security and privacy expected. Stay tuned for further updates on our partners CES schedule and announcements.

Thanks, great post, thanks. Confirms the Prophesse/Qualcom tie up may well include AKIDA.
Confirms that Renesas are integrating AKIDA into their products (they have now taped chips). I suspect we may well see some revenue flow via Renesas in due course.

 

[TheFunkMachine]

Another great partnership announcement today. Something I have noticed with most, if not all of these partnerships is the wording that states something like:



“With BrainChip's Akida processor, we will be able to deliver next-generation AIoT devices that are faster, more efficient, and more intelligent than ever before and not just meet, but exceed the expectations of our customers."



Statements like this are usually attached to every partnership announcement, which to me sounds very much like future comercial prospects and intigration of Akida IP into actual product. Otherwise how are they supposed to make devices faster, more efficient, and more intelligent if they didn’t actually incorporate the technology into their products?



I believe when Sean Heir said watch the 4C for revenue to gauge how we are tracking it does sound to me like most revenue will come trough our existing costumers Renasas and Megachips, but it does not exclude our partners from bringing revenue in the future.



Neither do I believe the lack of a licensing agreement with partners such as Arm, Intel, Si-five means that we won’t see revenue coming from them. But rather it be from them directly, it will be from their costumers wanting to integrate Akida IP into their systems and design and therefore they will be our direct costumers, and not Arm, Intel, Si-five as such.



But if Si-five, Arm, Intel etc did not have brainchip as a partner, then their excising costumers that want to integrate Akida into their products would have to jump ship to companies like Renasas and Megachips to get the product they want.



But as I stated in the beginning, most, if not all of the partnerships have made statements that alluding to commercial products containing Akida for the betterment of their solutions.

 

[Fullmoonfever]

I'm also not sure what all the concerns about "lack" of IP licences are ..

MegaChips has a full IP licence!

Can anyone tell me who MegaChip's customers are, other than Nintendo??
They are very tight lipped about it and this marrys in very well, with Brainchip's "potential" customers, wanting the secret sauce of AKIDA, to remain secret!

This from the original IP licence announcement.

"MegaChips is able to quickly and easily maintain its industry innovator status by supplying solutions and applications that leverage the revolutionary Akida technology to high growth markets such as (not only) automotive, IoT, cameras (do phones have cameras?), gaming and industrial robotics"

A classic example is Apple.
They may have not dealt with MegaChips before, but they are an open door, to keeping any association with BrainChip, under wraps.

In December 2021, I rang Tony Dawe and among other things wanted to confirm that Mercedes would need to purchase an IP licence, if they were to use AKIDA.
He didn't really answer my question, but the next thing he said, is that I should re-read the MegaChips announcement.

Having said all that, I do expect MosChips to aquire a full IP licence at some stage..

Technically, we wouldn't "need" any others.


Great new partnership announcement today, with Teksun!

Another stone in the foundation has been laid and we seem to be building a mighty strong one!

How tall will the BrainChip skyscraper be??

View attachment 30970

Think you will find Megachips are an Apple supplier or were in 2021.

Obviously doesn't spec what components though.

 

[Bravo]

Thales + Qualcomm

Wouldn't it be funny if Thales was "the communications company" that we've all been trying to guess at?

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip-enabled phones to support built-in 'iSIMs'

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip-enabled phones to support built-in 'iSIMs'

in.investing.com

 

[Damo4]

I can't keep up.
My brain rn trying to link everything (all roads lead to Qualcomm at this stage)

 

[Bravo]

Heres a new article, hot off the press, about a smart dunny that uses AI for broad-scale health monitoring. I sh*t you not!

Human feces and urine contain a motherlode of health data: 'Smart toilets' detect daily fluctuations, serious disease

A disease-detecting toilet capable of a range of monitoring and surveillance activities could soon be reality, and while the device may test for everything from how fast your urine flows to reporting on your vital signs, some people may be a bit squeamish about daily health updates from the...

medicalxpress.com

 

[chapman89]

Think you will find Megachips are an Apple supplier or were in 2021.

Obviously doesn't spec what components though.

View attachment 30971


View attachment 30972

If Brainchip work hand in hand with SiFive and a phone company, and work to bring RISC-V to mobile phones, then I would expect a new era of mobile phones that would take Apple out, or Apple could just license our IP.

But I think Apple wanting to do everything in house means that they would be one of the companies that would be last to adopt, so I don’t foresee them adopting akida anytime soon, plus I believe phones have a 3-4 year development cycle!

Since Renesas are the third largest supplier of semiconductors to the automotive industry, could Renesas be taping out for Mercedes which a couple models are suspected of having akida for the infotainment system, amongst many other Iot and edge applications?

https://www.autodaily.com.au/mercedes-rival-to-the-tesla-model-3-imagined/

 

[DingoBorat]

Another great partnership announcement today. Something I have noticed with most, if not all of these partnerships is the wording that states something like:



“With BrainChip's Akida processor, we will be able to deliver next-generation AIoT devices that are faster, more efficient, and more intelligent than ever before and not just meet, but exceed the expectations of our customers."



Statements like this are usually attached to every partnership announcement, which to me sounds very much like future comercial prospects and intigration of Akida IP into actual product. Otherwise how are they supposed to make devices faster, more efficient, and more intelligent if they didn’t actually incorporate the technology into their products?



I believe when Sean Heir said watch the 4C for revenue to gauge how we are tracking it does sound to me like most revenue will come trough our existing costumers Renasas and Megachips, but it does not exclude our partners from bringing revenue in the future.



Neither do I believe the lack of a licensing agreement with partners such as Arm, Intel, Si-five means that we won’t see revenue coming from them. But rather it be from them directly, it will be from their costumers wanting to integrate Akida IP into their systems and design and therefore they will be our direct costumers, and not Arm, Intel, Si-five as such.



But if Si-five, Arm, Intel etc did not have brainchip as a partner, then their excising costumers that want to integrate Akida into their products would have to jump ship to companies like Renasas and Megachips to get the product they want.



But as I stated in the beginning, most, if not all of the partnerships have made statements that alluding to commercial products containing Akida for the betterment of their solutions.

Sorry if this sounds condescending ..
But, NO.
These partnerships are just "feel good" arrangements, where everybody hugs eachother, pats each other on the back and says things like "Hey partner" and "I love you" annd "I love you too!"...

 

[Fullmoonfever]

If Brainchip work hand in hand with SiFive and a phone company, and work to bring RISC-V to mobile phones, then I would expect a new era of mobile phones that would take Apple out, or Apple could just license our IP.

But I think Apple wanting to do everything in house means that they would be one of the companies that would be last to adopt, so I don’t foresee them adopting akida anytime soon, plus I believe phones have a 3-4 year development cycle!

Since Renesas are the third largest supplier of semiconductors to the automotive industry, could Renesas be taping out for Mercedes which a couple models are suspected of having akida for the infotainment system, amongst many other Iot and edge applications?

Could be and hoping so.

As per my prev post where NASA in a recent solicitation indicated 22nm is common for automotive (were speaking of FDSOI at the time), I note that Renesas article said they too were taping out in 22nm CMOS. Doesn't say which foundry obviously.

As far as I recall AKD was in 28nm originally but we see Renesas in 22nm now and also AKD1500 in 22nm FDSOI by us.

The 22nm shift seems to be the common denominator at the mo