Sakura-I accelerator proved ready to provide AI in Space

New Products | January 28, 2025

By Peter Clarke

Fabless chip company EdgeCortix Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) has said NASA radiation tests on its Sakura-I chip show it is suitable for missions in Earth orbit and on the lunar surface and exceeds the capabilities of rival edge AI accelerators.

The part was subjected to both proton and heavy ion radiation to evaluate its ability to withstand radiation impact in space-like environments under the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging Program (NEPP).

Space missions are an example of where AI needs to be performed at edge to enable the use of machine learning for sensor processing and enhanced computer vision. The power consumption and latency make the use of the cloud unfeasible. Graphic processing units (GPUs), typically consume over 40 watts, far exceeding power budgets for most space missions. This is the background under which NASA has evaluated several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) low-power edge AI accelerators.

Sakura-I provides 40TOPS performance with a 20Mbyte SRAM cache at a power consumption of 10 to 12 watts.

EdgeCortix is now offering Sakura-II with 60TOPS (INT8) and 30TFLOPS (BF16) with the same cache at 8W power consumption.

The proton and heavy ion testing was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. These revealed that Sakura-I, made for EdgeCortix in Taiwan, has sufficient radiation tolerance for environments such as low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, and the lunar surface.

EdgeCortix claims that transitory radiation effects occurred at a significantly lower rate compared to other similar products tested.

“NASA’s testing confirms that high-performance, autonomous data processing during spaceflight is no longer just a possibility but a reality. EdgeCortix stands ready to deliver cutting-edge AI solutions that empower autonomous space applications today,” said Sakyasingha Dasgupta, CEO and founder of EdgeCortix, in a statement.