As the edge gets smarter, the challenge becomes increasing machine learning (ML) and inference without spiking power consumption—microcontrollers (MCUs) optimized for edge AI applications are important pieces of the puzzle.
Infineon Technologies’ PSOC Edge MCU series is aimed at developers looking to bring new ML-enabled internet of things, consumer and industrial applications to market. The E81, E83 and E84 options focus on usability.
The PSOC MCU series has an Arm Cortex-M55 architecture, which is augmented with Helium DSP support alongside Arm Ethos-U55 and Cortex-M33. All of this is integrated with Infineon’s proprietary hardware accelerator, NNLite, which is designed for neural network acceleration.
At the high end of the series, the E84 is aimed at graphics-enabled applications, such as fitness wearables, high-end smart thermostats or smart locks, allowing more ML to be done on-chip. Many applications are sensor-based to support anomaly detection and predictive maintenance in industrial settings, as well as to detect people when they walk into the room for security or environmental control purposes.
Like Infineon, Ambiq is looking to make the edge smarter without consuming more power. It recently launched the Apollo510, the first in its Apollo5 SoC series, to support endpoint AI, including speech, vision, health and industrial AI models, on battery-powered devices.
Apollo510’s hardware and software use the Arm Cortex-M55 CPU with Arm Helium to reach processing speeds up to 250 MHz and achieve up to 10× better latency than its predecessor, the Apollo4. Like Infineon, Ambiq is eyeing energy efficiency to support sophisticated speech, vision, health and industrial AI models on battery-powered devices.
The introduction of new MCUs to support edge AI comes at a time when generative AI (GenAI) is getting most of the attention, despite representing a small percentage of AI that’s being deployed.
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Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.