PITTSBURGH, Aug. 29, 2024 — Today, Efficient announced a strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries (GF) to bring to market a new high-performance computer (HPC) processor that is up to 166x* more energy-efficient than industry-standard embedded CPUs. Efficient is already working with select customers for early access and customer sampling by summer 2025. The official introduction of the category-creating processor will mark a new era in computing, free from restrictive energy limitations.

The partnership will combine Efficient’s novel architecture and technology with GF’s U.S.-based manufacturing, global reach and market expertise to enable a quantum leap in edge device capabilities and battery lifetime. Through this partnership, Efficient will provide the computing power to smarter, longer-lasting devices and applications across the Internet of Things, wearable and implantable health devices, space systems, and security and defense.

Current general-purpose processors are over-designed for generality, with most of their energy consumed by unnecessary internal data movement and instruction control overheads. The Efficient Fabric processor architecture is a paradigm shift, providing reconfigurable hardware at compile time for up to 99% lower DC power without compromising performance, setting a new benchmark for CPUs and creating a new category of ultra-low energy and high-performance processors. Efficient is bringing edge computing capabilities to use cases that were previously impossible due to limited energy availability. When combined with the MRAM and Adaptive Body Biasing (ABB) capabilities of GF’s 22FDX platform, Efficient is primed to enable its customers to overcome significant barriers in power consumption, facilitating the deployment of devices equipped with advanced capabilities worldwide.

“With energy efficiency at the forefront, our founding mission at Efficient was to reimagine general-purpose computing from the ground up and we are incredibly proud to bring our category-defining general-purpose processor to market,” said Brandon Lucia, Co-Founder and CEO of Efficient. “Partnering with GlobalFoundries was a natural fit and we are confident that together we will empower the world’s most critical industries to embrace the next evolution of energy efficient computing with ease and reliability.”

“We are excited to partner with a brilliant team of engineers at Efficient who are bringing a novel approach to processing architecture and setting a new benchmark for energy-efficient computing using GF’s 22FDX platform,” said Faisal Saleem, Senior Vice President of End-Markets at GF. “Together with Efficient, we will meet a growing market need for ML-enabled intelligent edge devices across various domains that are power efficient and deliver strong computing performance.”

The Efficient Fabric processor conserves energy across various applications, including machine learning-enabled (ML) extreme-edge machine vision, continuous audio intelligence and versatile sensory and signals intelligence. It also allows developers to use their own code, supporting popular embedded languages like C and TFlite at launch, with a roadmap to support many more in the first year, to create sophisticated intelligence applications that incorporate artificial intelligence, ML, signal processing, data analytics and other general-purpose data processing tasks.

About Efficient

Efficient has created a transformative computer architecture and software stack that delivers unprecedented levels of energy efficiency. Combining software with hardware, this novel processor technology is up to 166X more energy-efficient than leading general-purpose embedded processors. The Efficient processor is ideal for edge computing devices and applications across industries, including the Internet of Things, wearable and implantable health devices, space systems, and security and defense, where power restrictions have often limited both capabilities and value. Efficient is founded by a renowned team who have a wide range of expertise areas – from professors and PhDs at Carnegie Mellon University, to startup veterans.

About GlobalFoundries

GlobalFoundries (GF) is one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers and the only one with a truly global footprint. GF is redefining innovation and semiconductor manufacturing by developing feature-rich process technology solutions that provide leadership performance in pervasive high growth markets. GF offers a unique mix of design, development, and fabrication services. With a talented and diverse workforce and an at-scale manufacturing footprint spanning the U.S., Europe and Asia, GF is a trusted technology source to its worldwide customers.

*Benchmark: 5×5 Convolution – the workhorse of AI, ML, DSP, CV, and others, claimed low power SoC & Efficient E0 run the same C program. Methodology: claimed lower power SoC, Efficient E0 – Direct measurement on lab bench, Accelerator – Their advertised numbers for MLPerf Tiny 1.1

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Source: Efficient