News

15 largest industrial robotics markets in 2022

Source: The Robot Report, September 27, 2023 [1]
The International Federation of Robotics reported a 5% growth in industrial robot installations in factories worldwide in 2022, with 73% in Asia, 15% in Europe, and 10% in the Americas. The market is expected to grow by 7% in 2023 to over 590,000 units worldwide.

Nvidia offices raided by French authorities in anti-trust investigation

Source: NME, October 3, 2023 [2]
Last week, Nvidia‘s offices were raided by the French authorities as part of a larger investigation into anti-trust allegations in the cloud computing sector.

North America industrial robot orders drop for second quarter

Source: Robotics & Automation News, September 28, 2023 [3]
A slow US economy and high interest rates have taken a toll on robot orders in North American, resulting in a decline for the second quarter in a row after record purchases in 2021 and 2022.

AMD's latest FPGA promises lower latency stock trading bots

Source: The Register, September 29, 2023 [4]
AMD has refreshed its Alveo field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), promising a sevenfold improvement in operating latency and the ability to run more complex machine learning algorithms on the customisable silicon.

Intel to spin out programmable chip unit, hold IPO; shares rise 2%

Source: Reuters, October 3, 2023 [5]
Intel plans to operate its programmable chip unit as a standalone business starting in January, with plans to hold a public offering for stock over two to three years. The business was acquired by Intel from Altera in 2015.

Product design and development: How to bring your idea to life as a tangible product

Source: Robotics & Automation News, October 3, 2023 [6]
You’re in an early-stage hardware startup with a product design set to shake up the market. Not sure how to turn your idea into a product? Here’s a step-by-step guide to the product development journey.

Is there a place for CPUs in the GenAI world?

Source: The Fast Mode, October 4, 2023 [7]
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the GPU shortage in a Senate speech, highlighting the potential of GPUs in generative AI and the need for larger language models like ChatGPT to offer full capabilities.

Universal verification methodology coverage for Bluespec RISC-V cores

Source: Semiconductor Engineering, September 27, 2023 [8]
To achieve complete RISC-V verification, multiple methodologies, including UVM constrained random methods and compliance with the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) standard, are needed.

Papers

Hardware acceleration design of the SHA-3 for high throughput and low area on FPGA

Source: SpringerLink, August 30, 2023 [9]
The Keccak hash function is crucial in sensitive communications, including military, healthcare, and banking. This research aims to increase its throughput rate by introducing a novel architecture that reduces clock cycles and simplifies the round constant generator design. The new architecture achieved high throughput rates on FPGA devices with Virtex-5, Artix-7, Virtex-6, and Virtex-7, compared to recently published designs.

High speed and area efficient FPGA implementation of CNN accelerator for biomedical applications

Source: Research Square, August 31, 2023 [10]
This paper presents a new hardware accelerator, the CNN Accelerator, designed to speed up calculations for convolutional deep neural network inference and training. The accelerator uses various architectures such as convolution, activation, pooling, and fully connected layers. The new processing element block consumes less area, low power, and offers a 11% speed increase compared to the existing block. Implemented on the Artix 7 FPGA board, the accelerator consumes 7186 slices and on-chip power of 100.486W, providing higher speed than previous designs.

Previous Hardware Acceleration in Robotics Newsletters

Past ROS 2 Hardware Acceleration Working Group meetings

  1. Crowe, S. (2023, September 27). 15 largest industrial robotics markets in 2022. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/15-largest-industrial-robotics-markets-in-2022/ ↩︎

  2. Donovan, I. (2023, October 3). Nvidia offices raided by French authorities in anti-trust investigation. NME. https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/nvidia-offices-raided-by-french-authorities-in-anti-trust-investigation-3507608 ↩︎

  3. Allinson, M. (2023, September 28). North America industrial robot orders drop for second quarter. Robotics & Automation News. https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2023/09/28/north-america-industrial-robot-orders-drop-for-second-quarter/72508/ ↩︎

  4. Mann, T. (2023, September 29). AMD's latest FPGA promises lower latency stock trading bots. The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/29/amd_finance_fpga/ ↩︎

  5. Nellis, S. (2023, October 3). Intel to spin out programmable chip unit, hold IPO; shares rise 2%. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-operate-its-programmable-solutions-group-standalone-business-2023-10-03/ ↩︎

  6. Allinson, M. (2023, October 3). Product design and development: How to bring your idea to life as a tangible product. Robotics & Automation News. https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2023/10/03/product-design-and-development-how-to-bring-your-idea-to-life-as-a-tangible-product/72663/ ↩︎

  7. Vieru, C. (2023, October 4). Is there a place for CPUs in the GenAI world? The Fast Mode. https://www.thefastmode.com/expert-opinion/33411-is-there-a-place-for- ↩︎

  8. Universal verification methodology coverage for Bluespec RISC-V cores. (2023, September 27). Semiconductor Engineering. https://semiengineering.com/universal-verification-methodology-coverage-for-bluespec-risc-v-cores/?cmid=9fff00a6-2932-4128-b68e-ce2a2a7983ad ↩︎

  9. Sideris, A., Sanida, T., & Dasygenis, M. (2023, August 30). Hardware acceleration design of the SHA-3 for high throughput and low area on FPGA. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13389-023-00334-0 ↩︎

  10. Lahari, P. L., Gowtham, R., & Sankar, S. (2023, August 31). High speed and area efficient FPGA implementation of CNN accelerator for biomedical applications. Research Square. https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3312210/v1_covered_92874d74-1911-435d-93cd-b37fccb0e5b6.pdf?c=1693502892 ↩︎