Hi Manny,
We partnered with Megachips 3.5 years ago
https://brainchip.com/brainchip-partners-megachips-develop-next-generation-ai-solutions/
Laguna Hills, Calif. – November 21, 2021 –
BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN), (OTCQX: BCHPY)
a leading provider of ultra-low power high performance artificial intelligence technology and the world’s first commercial producer of neuromorphic AI chips and IP, today announced that MegaChips, a pioneer in the ASIC industry, has licensed BrainChip Akida™ IP to enhance and grow its technology positioning for next-generation, Edge-based AI solutions.
...
By partnering with BrainChip, MegaChips is able to quickly and easily maintain its industry innovator status by supplying solutions and applications that leverage the Akida revolutionary technology in markets such as automotive, IoT, cameras, gaming and industrial robotics..
...
“The MegaChips and BrainChip partnership furthers both company’s missions to push boundaries and offer unprecedented products,” said Rob Telson, BrainChip VP of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. “By providing Akida’s on-chip learning and ultra-low power Edge AI capabilities as an integrated technology in MegaChips’ ASIC solutions, we are able to deliver a cascading array of benefits to cutting-edge products that not only ensure power efficiency without compromising outcomes but can run autonomously for incremental learning without the need to go back and forth to the cloud. This is an exciting collaboration from both a business perspective as well as from an industry-altering aspect.”
Note the announcement refers to both licence and partnership.
This announcement is much more open than I had first understood, as I thought it was for Akida 1, but, as Akida 2 was already pretty much fully developed, it would make more sense if the subject matter of the licence were to be more open ended.
That said, there was an idea floated that a chip maker like Megachips couldmake Akida chips to order for 3rd party customers. Sadly, we are not aware of any royalties from this licence, so we are back to the original commercial run for Akida 1, which I believe someone said was 75k. I guess the number of 1500s would be of that order as well.
Now I think it would be more likely thay Megachips would be more interested in Akida 2 than Akida 1, especially considering the 8 times efficiency improvement. There was a lot of scuttlebutt about tapeout of AKida at the end of last year. However, I think TENNs has continued to evolve in the interim, so the tapeout would need to be adjusted. Given that this is an electronic file, that would not be too much of a burden.
The tapeout of Akida 2 will be significantly different from the Akida 1 tapeout, changing from 4 bits to 8 bits and incorporating TENNs and other new features like skip connexions (an anti-hallucigen).
Also remember that the number of nodes can be changed for a customer-specified production run. This inventory problem was a major consideration in the switch to IP only.
And now, of course, we have PICO, a major "wake up" power saving configuration ...
Re cybersecurity:
I've been an enthusiast for this type of application since the DUTH (Democritus University of Thrace) days. The CNRT from QV is incorporated in an M.2 PCB, about the size of a credit card. Many terminals have plug-in slots for M.2 cards. However, smaller devices such as mobile phones would not be able to accommodate an M.2 card, but an internet gateway, an edge box/server etc., would. I think the gateway is a main focus of our marketing at the moment.
To incorporate our cybersecurity solution in a mobile phone, it would need to have Akida designed into its electronics, possibly as a SoC incorporating the mobile processor, so that's a little further out, but given the scramble to incorporate LLMs in phomes, there would/could/should be substantial pressure on phone makers to include SNN capability.
Please remember, this is all speculation by DioGPT and not investment advice.