Digital transformation solutions company UST and Karnataka Information Technology Venture (KITVEN) Fund, through its Semi-Conductor Venture Fund and Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab, have jointly invested in Calligo Technologies, a data science and machine learning products and services company, in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

They will develop a Posit-enabled RISC-V multicore processor (system-on-chip, SoC)) to power accelerator boards targeting the HPC (high-performance computing) and AI (artificial intelligence) segments, a spokesman for UST announced here.

‘Disruptive’ invention

Posit is a disruptive invention that can create new standards for computing. Posit Numeric Unit (PNU) takes less circuitry than IEEE Floating-Point Unite (FPU). For the same no of bits, Posit gives better accuracy, higher dynamic range and entropy per bit, thus allowing the replacement of 64-bit floats with 32-bit Posit safely in many cases.

By 2023, the world of computing devices is expected to grow exponentially from 10 to 25 billion, primarily due to the high demands in the market segments like mobile, automotive, embedded and IoT, the UST spokesman said.

Code-named TUNGA, the SoC is capable of doing computations using the Posit Number System, and will be powered by the RISC-V processor integrated with the PNU. This will create a highly power-efficient and computationally accurate core CRISP (Calligo RISC-V with Posit). The alpha version is planned for release by the end of 2022.

Gilroy Mathew, Vice-President and Global Head of Semiconductor Engineering, UST, said the joint effort to develop CRISP-based SoC will empower the company to build more innovative AI and HPC silicon chipsets for its customers.

Beyond software-only focus

Anantha Kinnal, Chairman and Managing Director, Calligo Technologies, said by building the TUNGA SoC, Calligo will expand from its software-only focus to silicon, board, firmware, software and applications for the emerging markets. Calligo’s accelerator board, as an add-on to any standard server, is expected to significantly boost HPC and AI systems.

AR Jayakumar, CEO, KITVEN, said its vision is to provide long-term capital to early and growth-stage start-ups in specific focus areas in Karnataka to enable the State to build competitive products and solutions. SFAL, through its eco-system, has enabled Calligo with electronic design automation tools and silicon manufacturing.

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