SOPHON SG2380: A New Choice for AIPC

The year 2023 is a flourishing time for Large Language Models (LLMs), with a plethora of voices contributing to the field. The industry wave driven by LLMs has spurred innovation in architectural design, interaction methods, application ecosystems, and content creation. The rise of consumer-oriented large model applications, epitomized by ChatGPT and Midjourney, signifies a new phase in the evolution of deep learning technology. Particularly after the emergence of open models like LLaMA and Stable Diffusion, an increasing number of products have begun to integrate LLMs, offering various generative GenAI?applications and ushering in a new paradigm of human-computer interaction.

The first to undergo transformation are utility software, such as audio-video editing and office software. The integration of LLMs into locally run software means that model inference relies not only on cloud services but also on the assistance of edge devices.

AIPC is poised to become the first large-scale practical application of GenAI terminals. AIPC represents a new form of PC, an intelligent engine-integrated PC that is capable of smart perception of voice and image information.

In October 2023, SOPHGO, in partnership with SiFive, Imagination, and others, released the SG2380—a high-performance RISC-V SoC designed for AIPC.

The SG2380 is equipped with a 16-core SiFive RISC-V P670 processor, which combines 12 large cores and 4 small cores, striking a perfect balance between high performance and energy efficiency. For graphics and multimedia, it also features an Imagination AXT-16-512 graphics processor and a video codec supporting numerous encoding formats, providing an ultimate multimedia experience for users. The graphics processor is specially designed to meet the needs of high-end mobile gaming, fast photo editing, and smooth user interfaces, supporting Vulkan 1.3, OpenGL ES 3.3/2.0/1.1 and extensions, and OpenCL 3.0. In the field of multimedia processing, the SG2380 also performs exceptionally well. Its advanced video decoder supports resolutions up to 8192x4320, ensuring smooth and immersive high-definition video playback. Whether for professional content creation or streaming the latest 4K movies, the SG2380 offers unparalleled visual fidelity.

The enormous computational demands of GenAI call for specialized hardware, and the SG2380's 4-core SiFive X280 + SOPHON TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) is designed for this purpose. With up to 32TOPs@INT8 and 16TFLOPs@FP16 of TPU performance, it's engineered to accelerate GenAI computations, making tasks like natural language processing, image generation, and text generation not only possible but also exceptionally fast and efficient. It also provides a 256-bit DDR interface supporting up to 128GB of memory and a rate of 200GB/s, along with a variety of connectivity options including PCIe Gen4 and USB 3.2 Gen2, ensuring data flows quickly and unhindered between internal components or external devices.

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The integration within the RISC-V+TPU architecture heralds a new era of AIPC capabilities, with tasks that used to take minutes now completed in seconds. This processor emphasizes not just raw computational power; it represents intelligent computing, capable of meeting the demands of GenAI and multimedia applications, ensuring complex models and algorithms run smoothly, without any hindrance.

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The unique place of the SG2380 in the AIPC industry lies not only in its impressive technical specifications but also in its alignment with the RISC-V open-source architecture. This commitment to open standards fosters innovation, collaboration, and increases development flexibility, enabling developers and manufacturers to adapt swiftly to technological changes and advancements.

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As we stand on the threshold of the GenAI revolution, the SG2380 processor, with its pioneering RISC-V architecture, is not just a product but a harbinger of the future; AIPC is not just a tool but represents a future partner form, advancing with us to explore more possibilities. In the SG2380, we witness the evolution of intelligent computing, participating in a revolution set to redefine our relationship with technology.

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The Jia Chen Plan and SOPHGO

As one of the initiators of the Jia Chen Plan, SOPHGO will rely on this initiative to fully open source the SG2380. The launch of the Jia Chen Plan signifies that the RISC-V ecosystem will enter a new phase of growth, with the expectation that by 2036, an open standard system and open-source software stack will be realized across the entire information industry, from data centers to desktop offices, from mobile wearables to smart IoT. This move will not only accelerate the maturity of the RISC-V software and hardware ecosystem but also promote the widespread application of the SG2380 and future high-performance RISC-V processors, thereby advancing the in-depth development of the open-source characteristics of the 2380.