AI edge box PC is based on Jetson Xavier NX to run neural networks

Powered by Nvidia’s Jetson Xavier NX, the Boxer-8251AI is the latest edge box PC from Aaeon. The compact PC has a six-core 64-bit Arm processor, 384 Cuda cores, 48 Tensor cores, and two NVDLA engines capable of running multiple neural networks in parallel. The Boxer-8251AI delivers accelerated computing performance up to 21TOPS.

It also boasts 8Gbyte of LPDDR4 memory and 16Gbyte of onboard eMMC memory which can be expanded through the Micro-SD card slot.

The Jetson Xavier NX allows users to select one of five performance modes to tailor the number of cores, processor speed, and power draw the system uses. Combined with the thermal design, the PC allows users to match processor performance with thermal performance for each operating mode.

The Boxer-8251AI has two COM ports and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, as well as Gigabit Ethernet port. The PC can integrate into existing applications as well as new ones, says Aaeon. The rugged, fanless design keeps dust and other contaminants out of the system, offering reliable and low-maintenance operation, adds the company.

Alex Hsueh, senior director of Aaeon’s System Platform Division, praised its AI at the edge capabilities in existing and emerging applications: “Thanks to this flexibility, the Boxer-8251AI is able to power a wide range of AI and edge computing applications from smart city environments to monitoring public transportation users for fever and compliance with face mask requirements,” he observed.

Aaeon was established in 1992, as a designer and manufacturer of professional intelligent IoT solutions. Committed to innovative engineering, the company provides reliable and high quality computing platforms, including industrial motherboards and systems, industrial displays, rugged tablets, embedded controllers, network appliances and related accessories, as well as integrated solutions.

Aaeon also has the hardware and services for premier OEM/ODMs and system integrators worldwide. As an Associate Member of the Intel Internet of Things Solutions Alliance, Aaeon offers customised end-to-end services from initial product conceptualisation and board product development, to mass manufacturing and after-sales service programs.

http://www.aaeon.com

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Fanless 4K digital signage player includes remote monitoring

Based on 8th Gen Intel Core U-series processors, a 4K digital signage player, the SI-642-N, has been released by Ibase Technology. It can be used in commercial and retail locations as well as in transportation networks to provide real-time information and advertising relevant to the traveller.

The fanless SI-642-N offers high reliability for 24/7 operation in an industrial grade design. It is integrated with the Ibase iSmart and Observer technologies for remote monitoring, power on/off scheduling, power recovery and low temperature boot functions. The Intel HD Graphics 620 enables the system to simultaneously support two independent displays (one HDMI 2.0 and one active DisplayPort 1.2) with 4K (4096 x 2160) at 60Hz resolution. There are also two independent audio outputs.

The digital signage player’s MBD642 motherboard is populated with dual Gigabit LAN, four USB 3.1, dual channel DDR4 with up to 32Gbyte support and expansion slots including M.2 3042 B-key for 4G/LTE, M.2 2280 M-key for storage and M.2 2240 E-key for customers to install optional capture cards.

The Intel vPro and TPM 2.0 features increase productivity, remote manageability and data security, adds Ibase.

The SI-642-N is currently available in four models with different processor types. All operate on both Windows 10 and Linux Ubuntu operating systems.

Ibase Technology manufactures industrial motherboards, embedded systems, panel PCs, digital signage players and network appliances in the industrial PC and industrial IoT markets.

The Taiwanese company was established in 2000 and offers a range of digital signage system products catering across vertical markets including retail, banking, hospitality and education. Depending on their requirements, customers can choose the models based on performance, number of displays, resolution and ventilation designs. Ibase digital signage players feature advanced remote management that easily refreshes content and increases uptime while lowering costs. Ibase has partnered with leading digital signage platforms including Omnivex, Quividi and Navori. It is an Associate member of the Intel Internet of Things Solution Alliance.

http://www.ibase.com.tw

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BlueSky GNSS firewall update protects infrastructure

Critical infrastructure systems (e.g. power utilities, financial services, mobile networks and transportation) rely on timing derived from global positioning system (GPS). An update by Microchip Technology to its BlueSky GNSS Firewall software raises the level of resiliency against GPS vulnerabilities for systems.

Microchip’s BlueSky GNSS Firewall software release 2.0 performs real-time analysis to detect jamming and spoofing for protecting reception of the GPS signal and hardening response and recovery to avoid signal disruption. Release 2.0 includes charting and advanced threshold settings of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) elements such as satellites-in-view, carrier-to-noise, position dispersion, phase time deviation and the RF power level to simplify system turn-up and deployment.

Microchip developed improvements as a result of participation in an industry live-sky testing event hosted by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate. It identified new solutions to prevent signal disruption to develop the Blue Sky GNSS Firewall software release 2.0 to address operators’ evolving requirements.

Updates are essential to defend against rapidly-evolving GNSS disruptions and enable critical infrastructure operators to avoid interruptions of service.

Microchip’s BlueSky GNSS Firewall software release 2.0 is provided as part of a subscription service and is installed on the BlueSky GNSS Firewall device. When connected to Microchip’s TimePictra management software, critical infrastructure operators also can monitor and analyse GNSS signals in cities, across geographic regions, throughout a country and even globally.

Complementary devices and software in Microchip’s suite of GPS systems and services include the TimeProvider 4100 precise timing grandmaster with gateway clock, SyncServer 600/650 timing and frequency instrument, miniature atomic clock (MAC), Time Cesium and 5071A Cesium primary frequency standard.

https://www.microsemi.com

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Stratix 10 NX FPGA are AI-optimised, says Intel

The Intel Stratix 10 NX FPGA include capabilities, such as AI Tensor blocks and hardware programmable AI, to implement customised hardware with integrated, high-performance AI.

The Stratix 10 NX FPGAs high performance AI Tensor blocks are up to 15 times  more INT8 throughput than Intel Stratix 10 FPGA DSP block for AI workloads and are hardware programmable for AI with customised workloads. Near compute memory and embedded memory hierarchy for model persistence are also included, together with integrated high bandwidth memory (HBM) and high bandwidth networking with up to 57.8G PAM4 transceivers and hard Ethernet blocks.

The flexible and customisable interconnect can scale across multiple nodes, adds Intel.

The Intel Stratix 10 NX FPGA fabric includes new types of AI-optimised Tensor arithmetic blocks (AI Tensor blocks). These blocks contain dense arrays of lower-precision multipliers typically used in AI applications. The AI Tensor Block’s architecture is tuned for common matrix-matrix or vector-matrix multiplications used in a wide range of AI computations for both small and large matrix sizes. The AI Tensor Block multipliers have base precisions of INT8 and INT4 and support FP16 and FP12 numerical formats through shared-exponent support hardware. All additions or accumulations can be performed with INT32 or IEEE754 single precision floating point (FP32) precision and multiple AI Tensor Block can be cascaded together to support larger matrices.

Other features are speech recognition, speech synthesis, deep packet inspection, congestion control identification, fraud detection, content recognition and video pre and post processing.

The Intel Stratix 10 NX FPGA also incorporate hard intellectual property (IP) such as PCI Express (PCIe) Gen3 x16 and 10/25/100G Ethernet media access control (MAC) / physical coding sub-layer (PCS) / forward error correction (FEC). These transceivers provide a scalable and flexible connectivity solution to adapt to market requirements.

http://www.intel.com

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