QuadricTM today introduced the Quadric Developer Studio, an online collaborative development environment for ChimeraTM general purpose neural processing unit (GPNPU) processors. Quadric DevStudio speeds software development with the industry’s first integrated machine learning (ML) plus digital signal processing (DSP) development system. This comprehensive environment provides users with a graphical interface for constructing complex signal chains mixing classic C++ code plus neural net graph code, uploading and compiling machine learning ONNX graphs, uploading and compiling C++ code, and simulating entire workloads. Until now, most neural processing units (NPUs) used for artificial intelligence (AI) have been hard-coded inflexible hardware, and any programming changes had to be offloaded to a much slower DSP or CPU core.
A significant advantage of Quadric DevStudio is that neural network graphs and C++ code are merged into a single, fully programmable software application. Only one tool chain is required for scalar, vector, and matrix computations. Memory bandwidth is optimized by a unified compilation stack that helps result in significant power minimization. Future code changes can easily be made later as new features are added by the application developers.
Underlying the new DevStudio is the Chimera Software Development Toolkit (SDK) which includes the groundbreaking Chimera Graph Compiler (CGC), the Chimera Instruction Set Simulator (ISS), an LLVM-based C++ compiler, and the Chimera Compute Library (CCL) – a comprehensive set of building block libraries and APIs that speeds creation of optimized code for the Chimera processor.
Software developers and SoC architects can use DevStudio to link, compile and profile complex signal chains using a combination of pre-built C++ functions, pre-compiled neural networks, and user uploaded code.