Lattice expands ultra-low power sensAI stack

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Lattice Semiconductor has unveiled expanded features for the sensAI stack which have been designed to speed time-to-market for developers of flexible machine learning inferencing in consumer and industrial IoT applications.

Building on the ultra-low power (1mW-1W) focus of the sensAI stack, Lattice is releasing new IP cores, reference designs, demos and hardware development kits that provide scalable performance and power for always-on, on-device artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

“Flexible, low-power, always-on, on-device AI is increasingly a requirement in edge devices that are battery operated or have thermal constraints. The new features of the sensAI stack are optimised to address this challenge, delivering improved accuracy, scalable performance, and ease-of-use, while still consuming only a few milliwatts of power,” said Deepak Boppana, Senior Director, Product and Segment Marketing, Lattice Semiconductor.

Examples of the architectural choices that sensAI solutions now enable include:

• Stand-alone iCE40 UltraPlus/ECP5 FPGA based always-on, integrated solutions, with latency, security, and form factor benefits.

• Solutions utilising iCE40 UltraPlus as an always-on processor that detects key-phrases or objects, and wakes-up a high-performance AP SoC / ASIC for further analytics only when required, reducing overall system power consumption.

• Solutions utilising the scalable performance/power benefits of ECP5 for neural network acceleration, along with IO flexibility to seamlessly interface to on-board legacy devices including sensors and low-end MCUs for system control.

Updates to the sensAI stack include:

IP Cores – A new CNN Compact Accelerator IP core for improved accuracy on iCE40 UltraPlus FPGAs, and enhanced CNN Accelerator IP core for improved performance on ECP5 FPGAs

Software Tools – Updated neural network compiler tool with improved ease-of-use and both Caffe and TensorFlow support for iCE40 UltraPlus FPGAs

Reference Designs – New human presence detection and hand gesture recognition reference designs and demos

Modular Hardware Platforms – New iCE40 UltraPlus development platforms including Himax HM01B0 UPduino Shield, and DPControl iCEVision Board

Design Service Partners – New vehicle classification and package detection demos from sensAI Design Services Partners