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Published equation contexts

η  =  TOPSW  =  operations per secondpower draw (W)\eta \;=\; \frac{\text{TOPS}}{\text{W}} \;=\; \frac{\text{operations per second}}{\text{power draw (W)}}

Why this formula appears here

TOPS , tera-operations per second, measures raw throughput: how many multiply-accumulate operations a chip can, in principle, perform in a second. It says nothing about power, and by itself it is close to useless for comparing edge hardware, because a processor is free to spend arbitrarily large power to hit a large TOPS number. The metric that actually matters for a battery-powered or thermally constrained device is efficiency — operations delivered per unit of energy, conventionally reported as TOPS per watt : η  =  TOPSW  =  operations per secondpower draw (W)\eta \;=\; \frac{\text{TOPS}}{\text{W}} \;=\; \frac{\text{operations per second}}{\text{power draw (W)}}. Because a watt is a joule per second, η\eta measured this way is numerically the same quantity as operations delivered per joule. That equivalence matters because…

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operations per second\text{operations per second}

Numerator: operations per second

The complete quantity above the fraction bar.

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power draw (W)\text{power draw (W)}

Denominator: power draw (W)

The complete quantity below the fraction bar; it must be nonzero for this division.

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With a fixed numerator, increasing a nonzero denominator reduces the fraction. Read it with the definitions, units, and assumptions supplied by the article.

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Published contexts (1)

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η  =  TOPSW  =  operations per secondpower draw (W)\eta \;=\; \frac{\text{TOPS}}{\text{W}} \;=\; \frac{\text{operations per second}}{\text{power draw (W)}}

Equation 1 · Edge AI & Electronics

Edge AI Electronics and Sensor Systems: A First-Principles Introduction

This equation states an equality: the expressions on both sides have the same value under the article’s assumptions.

TOPS , tera-operations per second, measures raw throughput: how many multiply-accumulate operations a chip can, in principle, perform in a second. It says nothing about power, and by itself it is close to useless for comparing edge hardware, because a processor is free to spend arbitrarily large power to hit a large TOPS number. The metric that actually matters for a battery-powered or thermally constrained device is efficiency — operations delivered per unit of energy, conventionally reported as TOPS per watt : η  =  TOPSW  =  operations per secondpower draw (W)\eta \;=\; \frac{\text{TOPS}}{\text{W}} \;=\; \frac{\text{operations per second}}{\text{power draw (W)}}. Because a watt is a joule per second, η\eta measured this way is numerically the same quantity as operations delivered per joule. That equivalence matters because…

Meanings in this article

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