eenewseurope.com, May. 08, 2025 –
Cadence Design Systems has developed a configurable co-processor to provide automotive neural processing units with more flexibility.
The Tensilica NeuroEdge 130 AI Co-Processor (AICP) is a new class of processor designed to complement any neural processing unit (NPU) for agentic and physical AI networks on advanced automotive, consumer, industrial and mobile SoCs.
The core is based on the proven architecture of the Tensilica Vision DSP family and provides more than 30% area savings and over 20% savings in dynamic power and energy without impacting performance. It also runs the same software, AI compilers, libraries.
The Tensilica Xtensa VLIW-based SIMD architecture allows for custom extensions, and this can provide compatibility with in-house NPUs to improve the end-to-end performance and efficiency compared to its application-specific predecessors.
This issues instructions and commands to the NPU as a control processor with optimised instructions to run non-NPU optimal tasks such as ReLU, sigmoid and tanh. It issues 512 wide instructions with 512 8×8 multiply accumulate (MAC) units and also includes a new high bandwidth direct interface (HBDI) to feed the NPU.
Cadence says multiple customer engagements are currently underway, including indie Semiconductor and Neuchips. Dream Chip also uses the Tensilica core for automotive designs.