The move of Facebook to organize the SoC / ASIC development team within the company is known, whether it is for AI, server or new device

ByFritzchens Fritz

It has been reported that Facebook is building a chip development team inside the company and strengthening the move to get on full-scale development of SoC / ASIC development. This movement is certain also from the fact that job openings such as a manager job to advance development are done on the Facebook site.

Facebook Is Forming a Team to Design Its Own Chips - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/facebook-is-forming-a-team-to-design-its-own-chips

According to Bloomberg as a person who is familiar with the details of job offerings and circumstances inside Facebook, Facebook has a new direction to embark on the development of chips specialized in its service by organizing a semiconductor device development team inside the company It is said that it is launching. Since job information is also posted at the time of this article's creation, it is stated that it is necessary to build "end-to-end SoC / ASIC, firmware and driver development organization" as the required job in the recruitment overview , Chip development at the company is considered to be in the initial stage.

Manager, ASIC Development | Facebook Careers
https://www.facebook.com/careers/jobs/a0I1H00000LgnqFUAR/


In addition, as a necessary requirement to apply for this position, such as "Bachelor's degree or master's degree in Computer Engineering or Electronic Engineering", "Experience of 15 years or more in director or manager position in SoC development" Are listed.

Facebook, which has been born and grown as an SNS service, has embarked on the development of its own hardware, and it is expected that in the year of 2018, a smart speaker planned independently will be released.

The possibility that Facebook will make smart speaker "Portal" even in 2018 - GIGAZINE


In addition, a new device "Oculus Go" is expected to appear in 2018 also from "Oculus" acquired in 2014 and brought under umbrella. This device is rich in being sold at a price of just 199 dollars (about 20,000 yen), and it is a standalone type device that does not require a smartphone or PC besides the main body.

Oculus announces VCR headset "Oculus Go" of about 20,000 yen that can operate by itself - GIGAZINE


It is not clear what kind of service development Facebook is considering by developing this job and proceeding with chip development, but by developing our own chips used for hardware as mentioned above by other companies It is predicted to be a policy to break away from dependence. In addition, we are also considering developing chips for dedicated chips for artificial intelligence (AI) technology being developed in-house as well as servers for huge data center servers to provide SNS services It seems to be.

Yann LeCun, Facebook AI researcher, said, "Are you interested in designing ASICs and FPGAs for AI? I am tweeting the design engineer at Menlo Park on Facebook" Also, it seems to be a big clue in knowing the real intention of this recruitment.

Interested in designing ASIC & FPGA for AI?
Design engineer positions are available at Facebook in Menlo Park.

I used to be a chip designer many moons ago: my engineering diploma was in Electrical ...https://t.co/D4l9kLpIlV

- Yann LeCun (@ stylecun)April 18, 2018