Sophon
Sophon Logo
Developer	Bitmain
Manufacturer	TSMC
Type	Neural Processors
Introduction	October 25, 2017 (announced) October 25, 2017 (launch)
Process	28 nm 0.028 μm 2.8e-5 mm , 12 nm 0.012 μm 1.2e-5 mm
Technology	CMOS

Sophon is a family of low-power neural processors designed by Bitmain.

Overview

2018 Roadmap

Announced in late 2017 at the AIWORLD 2017 Artificial Intelligence Conference in Beijing, Sophon is a family of low-power neural processors. Bitmain started exploring the field of artificial intelligence and neural processors as early as 2015. By April 2017, their first product, the BM1680, has taped-out. Their chips are designed for both inference and training of neural networks, suitable for working with the common ANNs such as CNN, RNN, and DNN.

Models

	List of Sophon Neural Processors
Model	Launched	Process	TDP	Peak Perf (SP)
BM1680	8 November 2017	28 nm 0.028 μm 2.8e-5 mm	41 W 41,000 mW 0.055 hp 0.041 kW	2 TFLOPS 2,000,000,000,000 FLOPS 2,000,000,000 KFLOPS 2,000,000 MFLOPS 2,000 GFLOPS 0.002 PFLOPS
BM1682	March 2018	28 nm 0.028 μm 2.8e-5 mm		3 TFLOPS 3,000,000,000,000 FLOPS 3,000,000,000 KFLOPS 3,000,000 MFLOPS 3,000 GFLOPS 0.003 PFLOPS
BM1684	September 2018	12 nm 0.012 μm 1.2e-5 mm		6 TFLOPS 6,000,000,000,000 FLOPS 6,000,000,000 KFLOPS 6,000,000 MFLOPS 6,000 GFLOPS 0.006 PFLOPS
BM1686	June 2019	12 nm 0.012 μm 1.2e-5 mm		9 TFLOPS 9,000,000,000,000 FLOPS 9,000,000,000 KFLOPS 9,000,000 MFLOPS 9,000 GFLOPS 0.009 PFLOPS
BM1880	17 October 2018
Count: 5

See also

• Intel Movidius Myriad
• Cambricon MLU