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Renesas boosts AI with Arm Cortex-A55 on RZ/G2L microprocessors

Wed, Jan 20, 2021

Renesas has announced the expansion of its RZ/G2 general-purpose 64-bit microprocessors, with improved artificial intelligence (AI) processing.

The company has added three entry level microprocessor models built around the Arm Cortex-A55 core. The RZ/G2L, RZ/G2LC, and RZ/G2UL join the mid- to high-end RZ/G2E, RZ/G2N, RZ/G2M, and RZ/G2H microprocessors. Renesas adds that the seven RZ/G2 microprocessors provide scalability from entry-level to high-end design.

The RZ/G2Lx microprocessors’ Arm Cortex-A55 CPU core delivers approximately 20 per cent improved processing performance compared with the previous Cortex-A53 core. It also provides approximately six times faster essential processing for AI applications, says the company.

The latest microprocessors integrate camera input interfaces, a 3D graphics engine, and a video codec, for human machine interface (HMI) applications, such as multimedia processing, graphical user interface (GUI) rendering and AI image processing. The microprocessors also feature the Cortex-M33 core, to perform real-time processing for tasks such as sensor data collection without the need for external microcontrollers.

Hiroto Nitta, senior vice president and head of SoC Business, IoT and Infrastructure business unit at Renesas, explained that, with the entry-level products, Renesas is accelerating adoption of the Linux OS on high-performance microprocessors, for innovation to improve performance and enhance functionality in HMI devices, while driving down the overall cost.

“With AI transforming our daily lives, greater on-device compute capabilities are required to provide real-time insights for billions of IoT endpoints,” said Dipti Vachani, senior vice president and general manager, of Automotive and IoT at Arm. “By incorporating Arm technology in its latest 64-bit microprocessors, Renesas is accelerating the adoption of endpoint AI by enabling higher-performance IoT devices capable of processing more intelligence on the device,” he added.

The new entry-level RZ/G2L microprocessors feature error checking and correction (ECC) protection for both on-chip memory and external DDR memory. There is also a Verified Linux Package (VLP) featuring a Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) Linux – an industrial-grade Linux offering guaranteed support and security maintenance for more than 10 years. This makes it possible to reduce future maintenance costs, says Renesas. Additionally, support for security functions means that customers can also confidently adopt the RZ/G2L microprocessors for industrial applications requiring high reliability and extended service life, making it possible to bring products to market quicker.

For cases where more sophisticated AI functionality may be required, Renesas plans to enhance the functions and performance of the RZ/G2L microprocessors with its DRP-AI, AI accelerator.

Samples of the new microprocessors MPUs are shipping today, with mass production scheduled to commence sequentially beginning in August 2021.

An evaluation board can be reserved to get an early start evaluating applications for RZ/G2L microprocessors. Reference designs (circuit diagrams and board layout data) are available now.

Renesas is currently developing power management IC (PMIC) products optimised for the RZ/G2L Group. These are scheduled for release later this year.

http://www.renesas.com

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OmniVision increases image sensors and adds cybersecurity

Wed, Jan 20, 2021

Digital imaging specialist, OmniVision Technologies, has added the OX03F10 automotive image sensor to its family for automotive viewing cameras.

The ASIL-C sensor maintains simultaneous 140dB HDR and LED flicker mitigation, and offers increased resolution and cybersecurity to support vehicle designers transition from Level 2 and Level 3 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to higher levels of autonomy.

The OX03F10 maintains the combination of a large 3.0M pixel size with a high dynamic range (HDR) of 140dB featured in the company’s other automotive image sensors in the series. It is also claimed to have the best LED flicker mitigation (LFM) performance for minimised motion artefacts. The sensor is offered in a 1/2.44-inch optical format and features a four-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface.

It is also believed to be the first viewing image sensor with HDR and LFM that can deliver the wide vertical array resolution of 1920 x 1536p at the highest rate of 60 frames per second. This provides the high image quality needed when feeding surround view system (SVS) captures into autonomous, machine vision systems, explains OmniVision. The OX03F10’s wider vertical array is also important in e-mirror applications, for wider coverage and blind-spot elimination.

“In addition to excellent image quality across all lighting conditions, higher resolution and cybersecurity are becoming must haves for the designers of viewing cameras—particularly for SVS,” said Kavitha Ramane, staff automotive product marketing manager at OmniVision. The OX03F10 operates over the entire automotive temperature range and has ASIL-C functional safety.

The 3Mpixel resolution and cybersecurity features are required to integrate viewing cameras into autonomous vehicle systems. Cybersecurity ensures the images supplied to autonomous systems have not been altered, and augmented reality (AR) can take advantage of the OX03F10’s capabilities, for use within the vehicle, including in infotainment systems.

The OX03F10 also maintains the industry’s smallest package size, says OmniVision, and low power consumption, so that cameras that continuously run at 60 frames per second, can be positioned even in the tightest spaces. The image sensor also retains the family’s basic image processing capabilities, including defect pixel correction and lens correction. The integrated HDR and LFM engine (HALE) algorithm is the only imaging technology that can simultaneously provide top HDR and LFM performance, claims OmniVision. The result is high image quality for automotive viewing applications, including SVS, rear view cameras (RVC) and e-mirror camera monitoring systems (CMS), across all lighting conditions and in the presence of flickering LEDs from headlights, road signs and traffic signals.

OmniVision’s Deep Well, dual conversion gain technology enables the OX03F10 to capture significantly lower motion artefacts than competing sensors offering 140dB HDR. The split-pixel LFM technology with four captures offers the best performance over the entire automotive temperature range, claims OmniVision.

The viewing camera image sensors have OmniVision’s PureCel Plus-S stacked architecture, which provides pixel performance advantages over non-stacked technology. For example, explains the company, 3D stacking allows a boost to pixel and dark current performance, for a “significant performance improvement” over the prior generation of OmniVision’s viewing camera sensors.

This OX03F10 image sensor is available now for limited sampling in a-CSP and a-BGA packages, and is planned to be AEC-Q100 Grade 2-certified.

http://www.ovt.com

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ON Semiconductor integrates Quuppa’s locating tech in BLE SoC

Wed, Jan 20, 2021

Quuppa Intelligent Locating System is integrated in ON Semiconductor’s RSL10, flash-based Bluetooth Low Energy radio SoC. The Intelligent Locating System is in a user-friendly CMSIS-Pack format, to allow manufacturers to design low power indoor asset tracking applications with direction finding features and advanced angle of arrival (AoA) technology.

The Quuppa Intelligent Locating System is a technology platform for location-based services and applications. Its direction finding methodology and positioning algorithms enable real time tracking of tags and devices, with centimetre level accuracy even in challenging environments, says ON Semiconductor. The technology allows positioning updates to be sent up to 50 times per second, providing a reliable and versatile real-time locating system (RTLS) for all industries.

The RSL10 Quuppa RTLS AoA Tag CMSIS-Pack is part of an asset management development ecosystem from ON Semiconductor and technology partners. The ecosystem is designed to provide manufacturers with flexible deployment options, and features a range of RSL10-based options, including sensor development kits and software resources.

For turnkey solutions, ON Semiconductor has collaborated with Swiss RFID, Bluetooth Low energy, NFC and IoT engineering company, Tatwah, to develop a portfolio of Bluetooth tags and beacons including Quuppa Trackable Tags.

Monitoring and tracking of assets enables new capabilities and huge improvements in operational efficiencies across a wide variety of applications, explained Wiren Perera, head of IoT at ON Semiconductor. Low power wireless sensing and accurate location identification are essential to deliver these new capabilities and realise market potential, he added.

“We are thrilled to work alongside ON Semiconductor in creating a solution for monitoring and tracking assets across vertical markets. Over the years, we witnessed increasing demand for RTLS technologies where companies are seeking to gain visibility within their production lines and workflows,” said Fabio Belloni, Chief Customer Officer, Quuppa. “The need for a variety of different types of sensors and tags to empower those use cases is endless”.

The RSL10 Quuppa AoA RTLS Tag CMSIS Pack featuring the Quuppa Intelligent Locating System is compatible with all RSL10-based development hardware and is available now for free download.

http://www.onsemi.com

https://quuppa.com

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Tri-band chipset opens access to 6GHz spectrum, says NXP

Tue, Jan 19, 2021

The CW64 Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SoC from NXP is designed for access points and service provider gateways and enables end network devices to take full advantage of the 6GHz spectrum. The 6GHz band increases capacity in wireless networking and expands spectrum available for Wi-Fi by up to 1.2GHz.

This is the first Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band SoC from NXP to support the 6GHz band to provide greater capacity in wireless networking, as congestion increases in the legacy 2.4 and 5GHz bands. It supports 160MHz channel bandwidth with PHY rates of 4.8Gbits per second and over 4Gbits per second of real-world throughput

The 4×4 Wi-Fi device has four spatial streams and 160/80/40/20MHz channel bandwidth, with uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and uplink and downlink Multi-user, multiple input, multiple output (MU-MIMO) technology.

The CW641 is the first of six planned devices in the series. It enables increased speeds of over 4Gbps and multi-user performance in the new 6GHz band, providing greater capacity and lower latency. Adding 6GHz capabilities to gateway platforms gives service providers options to efficiently partition available bandwidth across devices to ensure optimum user experience for a wide range of applications. Mission-critical, high bandwidth, low latency applications like mesh back haul and cloud gaming are likely to migrate to 6GHz, freeing up the congested 5GHz and 2.4 GHz bands.

The Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SoC can also be used in the 6GHz spectrum to boost the performance of in-home mesh networks, streaming high-resolution music and videos, online gaming, video calling, digital downloads and data-heavy web content, explains NXP. In addition, the CW641 SoC can contribute to Wi-Fi 6E applications across consumer, automotive, industrial, and the IoT.

The CW641 Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SoC is sampling now.

NXP claims to have one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of wireless technologies. When combined with the processing power of the EdgeVerse platform, NXP says its portfolio allows customers to advance their most innovative ideas.

NXP Semiconductors aims to enable secure connections for a smarter world. The secure connectivity for embedded applications provider, is driving innovation in the automotive, industrial and IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has employees in more than 30 countries.

http://www.nxp.com

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Renesas boosts AI with Arm Cortex-A55 on RZ/G2L microprocessors

OmniVision increases image sensors and adds cybersecurity

ON Semiconductor integrates Quuppa’s locating tech in BLE SoC

Tri-band chipset opens access to 6GHz spectrum, says NXP

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