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Secure flash memory enhances secure data storage in self-driving cars

Tue, Aug 13, 2019

Macronix’s secure flash memory has been integrated in Nvidia’s next-generation autonomous driving platforms.

The automotive-grade ArmorFlash memory is being used on the Nvidia Drive AGX Xavier and Drive AGX Pegasus autonomous vehicle computing platforms.

The ArmorFlash memory is secure for data storage in the artificial intelligence (AI)-based Level 2+ advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) through to Level 5 autonomous driving.   

“Our efforts in conjunction with NVIDIA are singularly focused on elevating the security of data in AI-based autonomous driving applications and ultimately, to enhance the safety of drivers,” said Anthony Le, vice president of marketing, Macronix America.

The ArmorFlash memory on the Drive AGX Xavier and Pegasus platforms can provide trusted identification, authentication and encryption features for autonomous driving security requirements.

ArmorFlash offers a combination of mature security technologies, including unique ID, authentication and encryption features. This blend of features enables superior levels of security in a high-density memory device to prevent data from being compromised, claims Macronix.

The ArmorFlash device provides trusted NVM storage of encrypted and integrity-protected assets. The ArmorFlash supports secure communication channel and protocol with the Nvidia Xavier system on a chip (SoC) via cryptographic operations, integrity checks and additional measures against certain security protocol attacks.

The global ADAS market is expected to exceed $67 billion by 2025, fuelled by a compounded annual growth rate of 19 per cent, according to Grand View Research. The research company attributes the growth to increasing government initiatives mandating driver assistance system to lower road accidents and cites expanding adoption of ADAS in small cars as a factor boosting market demand.

http://www.macronix.com

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Speech inference is optimised for Intel FPGA PAC to save power demands

Tue, Aug 13, 2019

To save electricity consumption and to reduce data centre infrastructure, Myrtle announces that its artificial intelligence (AI) can run on the new, high-performance Intel FPGA Programmable Acceleration Card (Intel FPGA PAC) D5005 accelerator. The result is to reduce costs and remove growth constraints for businesses offering speech services such as transcription, translation, synthesis or voice assistance in on-premise or cloud-based data centres, says the AI specialist.

Intel and Myrtle have worked together to optimise a recurrent neural network (RNN) for speech inference on the Intel FPGA PAC D5005. The collaboration can run more than 4,000 voice channels concurrently on one FPGA, leading to a six-fold improvement in performance per watt compared with general purpose GPUs with a latency of one 30th that of a GPU, reports Myrtle.

“The industry has to take new approaches to produce machine learning solutions that meet customers’ stringent latency, power and cost constraints”, said Peter Baldwin, CEO, Myrtle. He added that these performance metrics on Intel’s latest PCA will allow customers preserve their investment in hardware as machine learning models evolve.

Myrtle specialises in hardware-software codesign. The quantisation, sparsity and compression of machine learning models has been recognised by the MLPerf consortium. Myrtle dominates MLPerf speech transcription and has open sourced its code to help the industry benchmark new edge and data centre hardware more consistently, says the company.

Myrtle creates high-performance, energy-efficient computing solutions for deep learning inferencing on next-generation data centre hardware. Myrtle’s RNN technology enables companies to cost-efficiently implement and scale speech applications on cloud or on-premise infrastructure.

Myrtle is a partner in Intel’s design solutions network (DSN).

http://www.myrtle.ai

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Integrated Optical Module Reduces Smoke Detector False Alarms

Mon, Aug 12, 2019

Analog Devices, has introduced the ADPD188BI, an integrated optical module featuring two LEDs, photodiode, and analog front-end (AFE) integrated together in a single package. The high performing AFE offers high ambient light rejection and reduces power consumption to support longer battery life. The two LEDs help reduce false alarms often caused by steam and dust. False alarms are a leading factor in detectors being removed or disabled by consumers. According to the National Fire Protection Association, nearly one in four deaths (23%) in the United States occurred where smoke detectors were not working or disable

View the product page, download the data sheet and order samples: http://www.analog.com/ADPD188BI

The ADPD188BI is engineered to meet new UL217 requirements as well as EN54/14604 specifications. Its integrated design uses two colors to separate particle sizes, increasing the ability to detect and classify smoke types and reject nuisance sources.  The ADI solution enables a back-scattering design with closer proximity of the LED to the photodiode, reducing circuit board size and allowing for smaller smoke detectors that are more architecturally compatible for residential and commercial use.

ADPD188BI Product Highlights:

  • • 3.8 mm × 5.0 mm × 0.9 mm module with integrated optical components
  • • Blue (470 nm) and IR (850 nm) LED
  • • Two external sensor inputs
  • • Three 370 mA LED drivers
  • • 20-bit burst accumulator enabling 20 bits per sample period
  • • On-board sample to sample accumulator enabling up to 27 bits per data read
  • • Optimized SNR for signal limited cases
  • • I2C or SPI communications

Pricing and Availability

Product

Full Production

Price Each Per 1,000

Packaging

ADPD188BI

Now

$4.00

24-lead 3.8 x 5.0mm LGA

About Analog Devices

Analog Devices is the leading global high-performance analog technology company dedicated to solving the toughest engineering challenges. We enable our customers to interpret the world around us by intelligently bridging the physical and digital with unmatched technologies that sense, measure, power, connect and interpret. Visit http://www.analog.com.

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Smart transceiver supports LonWorks and BACnet protocols

Mon, Aug 12, 2019

Multiple protocols can be used on the same network to simplify automation and control networks. According to Adesto Technologies, the FT 6050 smart transceiver’s ability to support LON, LON/IP, BACnet/IP and BACnet MS/TP protocol stacks to “revolutionise field integration for building automation and industrial control applications”.

The FT 6050 smart transceiver system on chip (SoC) enables the popular LON and BACnet industrial protocols to communicate simultaneously over the reliable and widely adopted Free Topology (FT) channel.

Adesto’s FT 6050 smart transceiver allows  BACnet workstations and LON network manager and integrator tools to natively field-configure, provision and monitor controllers as either LON or BACnet devices, or both. This enables a flexible architecture and takes advantage of the easy to install, fault tolerant and scalable FT media, points out Adesto. For OEMs, the FT 6050 can enable differentiated architectures with fewer SKUs needed in inventory. It also makes the integrator’s job easier and more flexible for both retrofits and new installations, adds the company.

The FT 6050 provides a uniform management architecture that can share data across networks and also externally to cloud systems. Adesto says it will continue to roll out further FT-based innovations across its edge devices and embedded IoT platform, exploiting the ease of interoperability between devices and integration to IoT and cloud systems.”

The FT 6050 smart transceiver SoC is supported in both LON and BACnet configurations by Adesto’s SmartServer IoT, an open and extensible industrial edge server that supports multiple protocols and applications. It enables the convergence of diverse systems into a single edge networking and compute platform.

Enhancements to the FT 6050 include native support for all BACnet features. There are also improvements to the memory architecture to allow for larger, higher fidelity applications, enabling creation of extensive systems. The FT 6050 is supported by  the SmartServer IoT’s BACnet and LON router and network managers, IzoT Net Server, an open platform software for creating and managing a network of devices and the IzoT Commissioning Tool, a GUI for creating a device network.

http://www.adestotech.com

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