3 ms·

Is this an ASIC? Or FPGA? Or something even more exotic? I’m guessing it’s some form of ASIC because I can’t imagine crafting the logic of Llama on silicon is

• jffry 7mo ago
  An ASIC is custom silicon, no? Anyways, I found this article discussing it a bit more: https://www.eetimes.com/taalas-specializes-to-extremes-for-extraordinary-token-speed/ https://www.eetimes.com/taalas-specializes-to-extremes-for-e... "Taalas is borrowing some ideas from the structured ASICs of the early 2000s to make its hardwired model-specific chips. Structured ASICs used gate arrays and hardened IP blocks, changing only the interconnect layers to adapt the chip to a specific workload. At the time, this was seen as a more cost-effective alternative to a full-custom ASIC that was more performant than an FPGA." "Taalas changes only two masks to customize a chip for a specific model, but the two masks can change both model weights and dataflow through the chip. On the HC1, the model and its weights are stored on the chip using a mask-ROM-based recall fabric paired with a (programmable) SRAM, which can be used to hold fine-tuned weights and/or the KV cache. Future generations of chips may split the SRAM onto a separate chip, meaning they could be denser than the HC1."