日本汽车制造商丰田决定进军AI处理器市场。丰田是一家名为爱信（AISIN）的公司的最大股东，爱信是一家汽车零部件制造商。
Japanese carmaker -maker Toyota has decided to have a crack at the market for AI processors. Toyota is the major shareholder in a company called AISIN, a manufacturer of automotive components.
两家公司都意识到，汽车越来越依赖图像识别等技术，而机器人和其他形式的“物理AI”将需要与汽车有重叠的部件。
Both companies are aware that cars are increasingly reliant on tech like image recognition, and that robotics and other forms of “physical AI” will need parts that overlap with cars.
爱信认为，现有芯片不适合这类角色，因为它们依赖外部内存来存储AI模型，然后会在处理器和模型之间产生大量流量。
AISIN thinks existing chips aren’t a good fit for such roles, because they rely on external memory to store AI models and then generate a lot of traffic between a processor and the model.
该公司主张，这种流量使图像识别和其他设备端AI应用的效果大打折扣。DRAM目前也极其昂贵。
That traffic, the company contends, makes image recognition and other on-device uses of AI less effective. DRAM is also currently vastly expensive.
该公司的应对方案是一款基于16纳米FinFET工艺的系统级芯片（SoC），配备Arm Cortex A53双核CPU以及Arm MaliG31 GPU。该芯片内置STT-MRAM，可同时存储模型权重和操作系统。
The company’s response is a system-on-chip built on a 16nm FinFET process, an Arm Cortex A53 dual-core CPU, plus an Arm MaliG31 GPU. The chip includes built-in STT-MRAM, which stores both model weights and an operating system.
爱信及其东北大学的研究伙伴表示，这种方法意味着该芯片从通电到内核启动仅需65.7毫秒——比使用外部内存快38倍——并能在芯片上运行Tiny YOLOv3目标检测算法。
AISIN and its research partners at Tohoku University say that approach means the chip can go from power-on to kernel startup in 65.7 milliseconds – 38 times faster than is possible if using external memory – and run the Tiny YOLOv3 object detection algorithm on the chip.
根据东北大学公告[PDF]的机器翻译，“为了有效利用有限的片上内存容量，开发了一种结合8位和16位乘法的混合乘法架构。”
“To effectively utilize the limited on-chip memory capacity, a hybrid multiplication architecture combining 8-bit and 16-bit multiplication was developed” according to a machine translation of Tohoku University’s announcement [PDF].
“通过结合16x16、16x8和8x8位乘法，AI模型的权重数据量减少了53%，从17.7MB降至9.36MB，同时保持16位精度。”
“By combining 16x16, 16x8, and 8x8 bit multiplication, the amount of weight data for the AI model was reduced by 53 percent, from 17.7MB to 9.36MB, while maintaining 16-bit precision.”
爱信是一家成熟的零部件供应商，已向丰田和其他汽车制造商供货，但尚未透露这款芯片能否或何时投产。
AISIN is an established parts supplier and already sells to Toyota and other automakers but hasn’t said if or when it can get this chip into production.
与此同时，英伟达和高通等公司非常希望向汽车制造商出售其芯片，并将自己定位为现有汽车供应链参与者无法匹敌的技术和AI智能来源。®
Meanwhile, the likes of Nvidia and Qualcomm very much want to sell their silicon to carmakers, and position themselves as sources of tech and AI smarts that existing automotive supply chain participants can’t match. ®