Low-Power MCU Company in Tie-Up with Synaptics

When you’re in the processor business, you’re also in the compiler business. Like it or not, inventing a new CPU or MCU with its own instruction set means you’re also on the hook for its entire software-development toolchain. In fact, a lot of “chip companies” employ more programmers than circuit designers.

And you thought inventing a new computer was hard.

That was the tall order facing Eta Compute. One of many, in fact. The small startup took on all sorts of self-imposed burdens. It invented a new MCU for AI inferencing. It invented a new low-power circuit design methodology it called DIAL (delay-insensitive asynchronous logic). It developed the chip’s compiler from scratch. Then it reinvented DIAL to create CVFS (continuous voltage and frequency scaling), which it then used to create an entirely new second-generation chip, the ECM3532. Then it had to redo the compiler for the new chip. And, when all of that was done, it had to go beat the bushes looking for customers who wanted an ultra-low-power MCU for “ML at the edge” from a new company nobody had ever heard of.

Surprisingly, all of that worked, and Eta Compute now has a handful of happy paying customers. But it was too much effort to be sustainable, so the company has made a strategic pivot. It’s now a “software and systems company,” meaning MCU development has halted and its second generation of chips won’t have any offspring. It’s the end of the line for Eta Compute’s hardware roadmap, but a new life for its compiler.

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