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EBV Elektronik signs agreement with AI chip maker, Hailo

Wed, Apr 27, 2022

EBV Elektronik has signed a distribution franchise agreement for the EMEA region with Hailo, the Israeli AI chip maker, which has a range of AI accelerator and AI acceleration modules.

Hailo’s AI accelerators include the Hailo-8 AI processor which features up to 26T operations per second (TOPS) at a typical power consumption of 2.5W. It enables edge devices to run sophisticated, deep learning applications at scale, said EBV.

The company also offers M.2 and Mini PCIe high-performance AI acceleration modules.

Hailo’s products connect to board-level platforms via the PCIe interface. This allows for high-performance and power-efficient AI when used with the Intel / AMD x86 or the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, or Arm-based processors, from NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics and Renesas, said the distributor.

The MicroSys Electronics miriac AIP-S32G274A embedded system on module (SoM), which is based on NXP processors is another example of a product which supports Hailo-8 AI acceleration modules.

“This agreement with EBV is a major opportunity for our AI technology to gain greater penetration across Europe and beyond, in a range of markets including industry 4.0, automotive, smart retail, smart cities, and smart home applications,” said Orr Danon, CEO of Hailo.

“Hailo’s technology is at the cutting edge of AI and deep learning applications,” said Susanne Betting, senior director Supplier Marketing at EBV Elektronik. It will complement EBV’s existing AI portfolio.

EBV Elektronik is an Avnet company. It was founded in 1969 and specialises in European semiconductor distribution. EBV maintains a personal commitment to customers and services with 240 Technical Sales Specialists which provide a strong focus on a selected group of long-term manufacturing partners. There are also 120 continuously trained Application Specialists which offer extensive application and design expertise.

The company also operates the EBVchips Program, to define and develop new semiconductor products.

Warehouse operations, logistics and value-added services such as programming, taping and reeling and laser marking are fulfilled by Avnet Logistics.

EBV operates from 65 offices in 29 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

http://www.ebv.com.

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Automotive ECU virtualisation ensures multi-zone use

Wed, Apr 27, 2022

Designers can integrate multiple applications into a single engine control unit (ECU) in automotive systems using the Renesas ECU virtualisation platform. Each application can be safely and securely separated to avoid interference. Customers can therefore adopt new electrical-electronic (E/E) architectures using microcontroller-based zone ECUs which support multiple logical ECUs on one physical ECU.

The ECU virtualisation platform combines Renesas’ RH850/U2x microcontrollers and ETAS’ RTA-HVR software, which is a hypervisor designed for microcontrollers with hardware virtualisation support. A demonstrator environment comprises pre-configured embedded software, tools and an interactive demonstrator environment for RH850/U2x microcontrollers.

Reflecting on the move towards zone architecture, Satoshi Yoshida, senior director, Automotive Digital Products marketing at Renesas, said: “The transition . . . increases the design burden by changing the functional role assignments between the central ECU and each zone ECU”.

“Working together with Renesas, we were able to leverage the [hardware] capabilities of the RH850/U2x [microcontrollers] to deliver a high performance, low overhead, embedded hypervisor for automotive applications that complements class-leading AUTOSAR OS technologies,” added Nigel Tracey, vice president of Vehicle Operating Systems at ETAS.

The RH850/U2x microcontrollers including RH850/U2A and RH850/U2B have a set of embedded hardware that realises the integration of multiple ASIL D-compliant software partitions. The microcontrollers are specifically designed for zone-applications targeting reduced ECU component count with minimal re-engineering overhead, explained Renesas. RH850/U2x microcontrollers include features such as hypervisor hardware support, quality of service (RH850/U2B only) support, safety and security functions and a network on chip (NoC) structure to ensure proper real-time behaviour of the individual integrated applications.

The RTA-HVR software works with the hardware virtualisation features of the Renesas RH850U2x microcontrollers to provide one or more virtual machines (VMs). VMs are separated from each other in both space (using the RH850U2x memory protection unit and guard features) and time (using the RTA-HVR VM scheduler) to meet strict automotive safety and security requirements. The RTA-HVR can build a virtual device extension (VDE). Each VM comprises one or more virtual CPU cores, a sub-set of device memory space and a collection of peripherals.

Renesas offers the RH850/U2x Zone-ECU starter kit which provides a “ready to run” configuration of RTA-HVR, showcasing VM configurations which can be single core, multi-core and multi-VM core configurations. Guest software images are provided for each of the configured VMs, including bare metal. Virtual devices are available for peripheral sharing and virtual inter-VM networking; a virtual CAN or controller area network, says Renesas.

A PC-hosted application enables users to observe and interact with the VMs at runtime. The PC application supports triggering faults to explore behaviours as a result of memory violations, for example. It can also update one VM while the other VMs are running using the no-wait OTA capabilities of the RH850/U2x. Other functions are to explore the impact of alternative VM switching mechanisms and enabling developers to see the impact of hardware quality of service features.

The ECU virtualisation software platform, including the RH850/U2x Zone-ECU starter kit will be available from the end of May 2022.

http://www.renesas.com

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FlightSense software makes gestures speak volumes

Tue, Apr 26, 2022

STMicroelectronics said it is now making gesture detection simpler and more affordable for mass-market applications with companion software for its VL53L5CX multi-zone ToF ranging sensor. The sensor, together with free engineering software, will enable touchless, gesture-based controls in simple, cost-conscious consumer and industrial applications.

According to ST, gesture recognition with ToF sensors is a breakthrough technology that enables sophisticated interactions with a wide variety of devices instead of being confined to applications in high-end vehicles.

Gesture-based interaction in a wide range of equipment, including kitchen appliances, thermostats, smart home and smart lighting controls, laptops, AR / VR headsets, tablets and smartphones are not only convenient, it can prevent infection from spreading through touch when using equipment such as vending and ticketing machines, elevator controls, and interactive signage.

Together, the sensor and software calculate in real-time the X / Y / Z coordinates of the hand, enabling hand tracking as well as recognition of gestures like tapping, swiping or level control.

Conventional gesture-recognition systems typically use more expensive and intrusive camera-based machine vision, but ST said its FlightSense technology and software allow designers to build systems with lower power consumption, and that work in the dark without needing external illumination, unlike vision-based systems The lightweight gesture algorithm can run on a low power microcontroller and demands minimal system resources for it to be easily integrated in an existing application, said ST.

The STSW-IMG035 software package is specially designed for the VL53L5CX multi-zone direct time-of-flight (dToF) ranging sensor and can be used with all STM32 microcontrollers.

The VL53L5CX is ST’s latest-generation ToF sensor, providing 64 zones with high-accuracy ranging up to 400cm with a wide, square-edged 63 degree-diagonal field of view.

The VL53L5CX sensor is in production now, in a 6.4 x 3.0 x 1.5mm 16-pin optical LGA package. The turnkey STSW-IMG035 gesture package includes resources including a GUI, example code and libraries. Associated software packages and hardware evaluation boards are available here.

http://www.st.com

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Lynx Mosa.ic supports Google Athos for VI AI at the edge

Tue, Apr 26, 2022

Industrial and energy plant manager can deploy AI and other cloud-based workloads at the network edge following a partnership by Lynx Software Technologies with Google Cloud. The Lynx Mosa.ic platform supports Google Anthos Bare Metal and Google Visual Inspection (VI) AI Service for secure, video-based quality inspection, says Lynx Software.

As a result, real-time image capture can be easily caught on devices such as cameras on manufacturing plant floors. In addition, inference models built by Google Cloud Visual Inspection AI, can generate the insights while the supervisory controller connects to the manufacturing execution system (MES) and translates insights into action. Lynx’s technology brings immutable isolation security which cannot be bypassed, claimed Lynx Software.

Using Google Anthos for bare metal support means that an entire Kubernetes cluster can be run locally in as little as one hardware system at the edge, with Lynx-enabled virtual air gapping providing isolation within the system.

Addressing the security concerns for mission-critical industrial environments around merging AI and machine learning models in the cloud and deploying cloud-based workloads at the edge, Lynx has sandboxed three functions with the options of a secure one-way connection between them. The three functions are for image capture (via a camera), insight via the Google Anthos inference engine and the action with a supervisory controller.

Pavan Singh, vice president of product management at Lynx, commented: “Any containerised service can now be deployed to the mission-critical edge without compromising security or performance”.

Video-based quality systems play a role in enhancing performance and quality of output in industrial and energy applications, while mitigating security risks, said Lynx. Efficient visual inspection can reduce defects up to 10-fold. In addition to preventing the shipping of defective parts, operators can gain insights into the cause of any defects in order to optimise processes

For this set-up, the Lynx Mosa.ic runs on an Advantech MIC770, although Mosa.ic is also able to run on various Intel and Arm processors, facilitating local or on-premises management with the benefits of using the cloud for workloads.

Lynx Software Technologies enables safe, secure and high-performance environments for customers in aerospace and automotive, enterprise and industrial markets. Since 1988 it has supplied real-time operating systems (RTOS), virtualisation and system certification to protect data.

http://www.lynx.com

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EBV Elektronik signs agreement with AI chip maker, Hailo

Automotive ECU virtualisation ensures multi-zone use

FlightSense software makes gestures speak volumes

Lynx Mosa.ic supports Google Athos for VI AI at the edge

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