CPUs and architecture

Which dedicated circuit is built into smartphone SoCs and similar chips to perform AI inference quickly and with low power?

  1. APLL (phase-locked loop)
  2. BAD converter
  3. CNPU (neural processing unit)
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Answer: C. NPU (neural processing unit)

An NPU is a dedicated circuit for efficiently performing the multiply-accumulate operations that make up most of the computation in neural networks. It delivers higher performance per watt than a general-purpose CPU, allowing tasks such as image and speech recognition to be processed on the smartphone itself.

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More CPUs and architecture questions

  1. In a typical computer, which lists the memory hierarchy from fastest to slowest access?
  2. Approximately how many instructions per second can a processor with a 2 GHz clock and an average CPI (clocks per instruction) of 0.5 execute?
  3. If 90% of a program can be parallelized, what is the theoretical maximum speedup when it runs on an unlimited number of processors?
  4. Which scheme performs the same operation on multiple data items simultaneously with a single instruction?
  5. Which CPU configuration combines high-performance cores and power-efficient cores and uses them according to the workload?