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

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

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

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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Embedded processor module paves way for precision robotics

Computer vision, edge artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning are brought together in the VCS-1 low power, embedded processor module by Sundance Multiprocessor Technology.

The VCS-1 is designed specifically for precision robotics incorporating complex, real-time vision, control and sensor applications.

It has been developed and proven as part of the European Union’s H2020 ‘Fast-Track-Innovation’ pilot programme. The VineScout (VS) uses robotics to collect real-time data from vineyards to devise grape maturation and harvesting strategies.

The PC/104 form factor measures 90 x 96mm and provides industry-standard compatibility and expandability, says Sundance. The VCS-1 embedded processor module is optimised for computer vision, edge artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning requirements. It weighs just 300g, has a low power consumption of typically 15W and is compatible with a range of commercially available sensors and actuators.

The Sundance VCS-1 is based on a Xilinx Zynq MPSoC, mounted on to the PC/104 board using a system on module (SoM). There is also an Arm Cortex A53 64-bit quad-core processor which combines real time control through engines for graphics, video, waveform, and acceleration with an FPGA. Characteristics include an Arm Mali 400 graphics processing unit (GPU) for graphics acceleration, an Arm Cortex R5 real time processing unit (RPU) for managing real time events and the programmable FPGA logic for hardware acceleration of AI algorithms used for on-the-fly image processing.

The Sundance VCS-1 features extensive I/O capabilities available through the Sundance external interface card (SEIC), including multiple USB3 interfaces for interfacing various cameras and sensors such as the Intel RealSense T265 tracking camera, Intel RealSense D435 and Stereo Labs’ Zed depth cameras and FLIR AX-8 thermal camera. It can also connect with most Arduino and Raspberry Pi actuators and sensors. One interface enables it to mimic a PC with HDMI display, SATA storage and Ethernet networking. An on-board ADC gathers data from an external sensor and there is an on-board DAC to control devices such as servos. I/O standards are also implemented directly on the programmable logic to reduce the latency between the various supported cameras, sensors and servos.

Software support for precision robotics includes the ROS Melodic Morenia (ROS- compatible and ROS2-ready) robotics platform, MQTT machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity protocol, OpenCV computer vision library of real time programming functions, Xilinx’s Edge-AI solutions and the Python scripting language. The Ubuntu operating system, Xilinx SDSoC environment, TULIPP’s STHEM toolchain and Xilinx DPU (deep learning processing unit) for convolutional neural networks are also supported.

The Sundance VCS-1 is available in a custom enclosure. The PC/104-Blade, is designed to remove the need for any fans and provide a rugged environment for building embedded applications for resilient, precision robotics.

The Sundance VCS-1 precision robotics platform has been developed in conjunction with the VineScout viticulture partners, which includes the French Agri-robotics manufacturer, Wall-YE.

The project’s aim is to develop a robot for vineyard monitoring to help wine producers measure key parameters of their vineyards, including water availability, the temperature of the leaves and plant robustness. Capable of operating 24/7, the VineScout has a battery life of six hours and provides winemakers with real time data on vine and grape growth and maturation, so that they can optimise irrigation and harvesting.

Sundance Homepage

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