POLYN and Fraunhofer join forces for European chip project

The two companies’ project, accepted by the EU-funded ASCENT+ Consortium, enables access to key European infrastructures and helps academic and industry researchers address emerging challenges in nanoelectronics to accelerate innovation. 

The project’s aim is to refine development of the analogue design of ultra-low-power Tiny AI NASP chips, enabling a wide variety of affordable on-sensor Edge AI solutions.

The NASP chip is a technology breakthrough aiming to add intelligence to various sensors used in wearables, predictive maintenance, and other IoT applications. It contains artificial neurons (nodes performing computations) and axons (connections with weights between the nodes) implemented using circuitry elements; neurons are implemented using operational amplifiers and axons by using thin-film resistors.

Fraunhofer Mikroelektronik will deliver the project, under the management of Dr. Lukas Gerlich, who described POLYN’s approach as a “new frontier in technology development for neuromorphic computations at edge AI”.

“We welcome the addition of Fraunhofer Mikroelektronik’s expertise in microelectronics and ASCENT+’s network of knowledge and investment to expedite delivery of next-generation NASP chips to our customers,” said Alexander Timofeev, CEO of POLYN Technology.