Ask HN: Chip startups?

#1

Post by icu » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

Are there any start-ups in the chip space? I think this falls in the 'sounds like a bad idea' bucket, but could be potentially good idea.

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#2

Post by solomatov » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

Of course there're. Couple of examples:

- https://www.sifive.com/ - RISC-V related company

- https://www.cerebras.net/ - Cerebras (AI accelerator)

Both of categories has other players, these are just two notable examples.

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#3

Post by frozenport » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

Currently living in a Cambrian explosion of AI chips: https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2019/01/23/2019-a-...

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#4

Post by runjake » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

I don't mean to be rude, but you could have Googled and gotten a pretty rich and interesting set of results:

https://www.google.com/search?q=chip+startups

I'm pretty impressed with the number of AI/neural network semiconductor startups right now.

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#5

Post by 0xbadc0de5 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

https://tenstorrent.com/

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#6

Post by Lind5 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

Semiconductor Engineering does a monthly startup funding report. All are chip industry related

https://semiengineering.com/knowledge_centers/startups/

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#7

Post by Centigonal » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

Lots of cool stuff in the hardware AI space

https://sambanova.ai/ - Enterprise AI and dataflow-as-a-service for established moodels

https://www.cerebras.net/ - AI accelerator, trying to compete with NVidia

https://www.graphcore.ai/ - Another AI accelerator company - UK based

https://femtosense.ai/ - Sparse NNs on very low power chips - cool hardware and software challenges

https://sima.ai/ - ML accelerators for embedded applications

https://ambiq.com/ - Not AI, but low power chips for wireless using some fancy tech that reduces energy leakage

There are dozens more, these are just the ones I've heard of.

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#8

Post by asciimike » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

Centigonal wrote: post #7

Lots of cool stuff in the hardware AI space https://sambanova.ai/ - Enterprise AI and dataflow-as-a-service for established moodels https://www.cerebras.net/ - AI accelerator, trying to compete with NVidia https://www.graphcore.ai/ - Another AI accelerator company - UK based https://femtosense.ai/ - Sparse NNs on very low power chips - cool hardware and software challenges https://sima.ai/ - ML accelerators for embed…

Adding a few I know of:

https://groq.com/ - From the team that built the original TPU at Google

https://lightmatter.co/ - Light tubes instead of copper

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#9

Post by ahmadmijot » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

Not chip the microchip manufacturing but the chip in chip design (IC design) space. I'm currently a part of startup in this area.

It's so costly I don't know how other related startups can survive though.

Re: Ask HN: Chip startups?

#10

Post by hbrav » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

Centigonal wrote: post #7

Lots of cool stuff in the hardware AI space https://sambanova.ai/ - Enterprise AI and dataflow-as-a-service for established moodels https://www.cerebras.net/ - AI accelerator, trying to compete with NVidia https://www.graphcore.ai/ - Another AI accelerator company - UK based https://femtosense.ai/ - Sparse NNs on very low power chips - cool hardware and software challenges https://sima.ai/ - ML accelerators for embed…

Adding one more: https://www.untether.ai/