Neuromorphic memory and inference engine stacked with image sensor to reduce data traffic to host

A system comprising:

• a first camera configured to generate a first image stream, wherein the first camera comprises a first inference engine configured to generate a first intermediate result using the first image stream as input to a first portion of a first artificial neural network (ANN);
• a second camera configured to generate a second image stream, wherein the second camera comprises a second inference engine configured to generate a second intermediate result using the second image stream as input to a first portion of a second artificial neural network (ANN);
• a processing device or logic circuit configured to communicate with the first camera and the second camera;
• and
• a host interface to communicate inference results to a host system;
• wherein the first camera further comprises an interface to communicate the first intermediate result to the second camera;
• wherein the second camera further comprises an interface to communicate the second intermediate result to the first camera;
• wherein the first inference engine uses the first intermediate result and the second intermediate result as input to a second portion of the first ANN to generate a first final result;
• wherein the second inference engine uses the first intermediate result and the second intermediate result as input to a second portion of the second ANN to generate a second final result;
• and
• wherein the processing device or logic circuit is further configured to:
• determine whether the first final result matches the second final result;
• and
• in response to determining that the first final result matches the second final result, communicate, via the host interface, an output to the host system for processing, wherein the output is based on at least one of the first final result or the second final result.

A method comprising:

• generating, by an image sensor, image data;
• storing, by a memory device, the generated image data, wherein the memory device comprises an inference engine configured to generate inference results using the stored image data as input to an artificial neural network (ANN), and wherein the inference engine includes a neural network accelerator configured to perform matrix arithmetic computations on the stored image data;
• and
• communicating by a host interface with a host system, wherein the host interface is configured to send the inference results to the host system for processing.