(03-26-2025, 11:01 AM)biketool Wrote: The Pinephone Pro with a Rockchip RK3399S CPU includes a 3.0 TOPS Neural Processing Unit.
I assume it is a massively multi-threaded ASIC processor similar to a GPU without graphics specific circuitry on the die.
Do we have any software or the required drivers to utilize this hardware?
Other than jankey code what is this useful for?
I came across this very well referenced blog post:
https://tristanpenman.com/blog/posts/202...kchip-npu/
it goes deeply into the way the Rockchip and other NPUs work, what is interesting is that as expected it shares DMA with the CPU(like the GPU) it might be important even if it is not user powered up or there is no driver present that we can somehow see if there isno code processing in this discreet processing unit even if it is not as much of a danger as say the Intel Management Engine. This is especially important to clarify if there is somewhere some NVRAM on the chipset which could possibly boot something onto the NPU after a supply chain or evil maid attack vector..
