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Qualcomm launches next-generation XR and AR platforms

Wed, Oct 04, 2023

Two spatial computing platforms called Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 and Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 have been introduced by Qualcomm to enable the next generation of mixed reality (MR), virtual reality (VR) devices and smart glasses.

Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 brings premium MR and VR technology into a single chip architecture for immersive experiences in thinner and more comfortable headsets, that do not require an external battery pack.

It is engineered to deliver a lag-free experience with immersive sound blending virtual content with the user’s physical surroundings and transition seamlessly between MR and VR experiences.

Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 platform is designed with power optimisations for sleek, lightweight smart glasses that enable the user to capture, share or live-stream hands-free, directly from the glasses. On-device AI enables personal assistant experiences such as audio quality enhancement, visual search and real-time translation. There is also support for a visual heads-up display to enable content consumption, including video, that blend seamlessly in the users’ field of view.

The platforms were developed in close collaboration with Meta and will commercially debut on Meta devices in 2023. The Meta Quest 3 will be powered by Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 Platform, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses collection will be powered by Snapdragon AR1 Platform. Other manufacturers are expected to follow next year.

“At Meta, we’re focused on developing the technologies of the future in mixed reality and smart glasses, as well as the foundational innovations that will one day power our vision for AR glasses,” said Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Meta’s CTO and Head of Reality Labs.

“The Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 and Snapdragon AR1 platforms are the latest purpose-built processors that are designed to power the next generation of MR and VR devices and sleek smart glasses for all,” said Hugo Swart, vice president and GM of XR, Qualcomm Technologies. “The commercial debut of these two platforms with Meta is a further step forward in realizing our joint vision – unlocking premium, all-in-one XR devices and smart glasses that are affordable to users around the globe.”

http://www.qualcomm.com

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Contactless connections simplify and streamline design, says Molex

Wed, Sep 27, 2023

The MX60 series of contactless connectivity solutions have been developed to ease device pairing, streamline design engineering and boost product reliability, said Molex.

These low power, high speed, solid state devices feature miniaturised mmWave RF transceivers and built-in antennas in a single package. They deliver faster, simpler, device-to-device communications without the use of physical cables or connectors, said the company. The MX60 solutions can offer seamless device pairing and increased communications reliability for video displays, sleek and light consumer electronics, industrial robotics and devices operating in harsh environments, the company continued.

The MX60 series is based on wireless chip-to-chip technology and more than 350 filed patent applications acquired in 2021 with the purchase of core technology and IP from high-speed, contactless connectivity company, Keyssa. The acquired technology operates at data rates from 1,0 to 5.4Gbits per second on the 60GHz band with no Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth interference.

The first models in the MX60 series replace traditional DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet and USB SuperSpeed connectors to reduce development time, cost and risk, explained Molex. An integrated retimer optimises signal integrity at higher data rates.

A space-saving, contactless solution that provides USB2 and other low-speed interfaces is currently in development.

“Every piece of real estate counts when designing smartphones, AR/VR glasses, smartwatches and other consumer devices,” said Walter Rivera, senior manager, wireless connectivity product manager for the Micro Solutions business unit at Molex. “By combining USB2 and other low-speed interfaces in one contactless solution, we will offer product developers a critical head-start as they won’t have to worry about fitting extra components into ever-shrinking form factors,” he added.

The MX60 series also improves the durability of products exposed to harsh environmental conditions, such as dust, moisture and corrosion. The series addresses a variety of applications and devices, including smartphones, AR/VR glasses, tablets, self-driving vehicles, video walls, industrial robotics, medical wearables and wireless docking stations.

The sealed, contact-free solutions provide significant benefits over physical metal-to-metal contacts which can degrade over time and impact product performance and reliability, claimed the company. The contactless connectivity solutions are less prone to risks associated with ingress and repeated motion, including high-vibration and rotational products. The ability to remove diagnostic ports on wirelessly charged devices also can reduce development and production costs while boosting overall product reliability.

Production samples are available for MX60 USB SuperSpeed products, for high vibration and harsh environments, including mobile devices and networking applications, MX60 Gigabit Ethernet, for wireless infrastructure, industrial automation, medtech and networking applications and MX60 DisplayPort main and auxiliary, the high speed replacements for conventional DisplayPort connectors.

Plans are underway to expand the MX60 series further by leveraging Molex’s mmWave antenna, high-speed signal integrity and volume manufacturing expertise.

http://www.molex.com

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IP and SDK accelerate on-device and edge AI design, says Cadence

Fri, Sep 15, 2023

AI IP and software tools to address the escalating demand for on-device and edge AI processing have been unveiled by Cadence. The scalable Cadence Neo neural processing units (NPUs) deliver a range of AI performance in a low-energy footprint, said the company and this is claimed to bring new levels of performance and efficiency to AI SoCs.
The Neo NPUs deliver up to 80TOPS performance in a single core, in order to support both classic and new generative AI models. They can also offload AI/ML execution from any host processor, including application processors, general-purpose microcontrollers and DSPs. This is achieved with a simple and scalable AMBA AXI interconnect.
Cadence has also introduced the NeuroWeave software development kit (SDK) which it said provides developers with a “one-tool” AI software solution across Cadence AI and Tensilica IP products for no-code AI development.
“While most of the recent attention on AI has been cloud-focused, there are an incredible range of new possibilities that both classic and generative AI can enable on the edge and within devices,” pointed out Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research. For these intuitive, intelligent devices to be realised will need a flexible, scalable combination of hardware and software solutions with a range of power requirements and compute performance, “all while leveraging familiar tools” he believed. “New chip architectures that are optimised to accelerate ML models and software tools with seamless links to popular AI development frameworks are going to be incredibly important parts of this process,” he added.
The Neo NPUs are suitable for power-sensitive devices as well as high-performance systems with a configurable architecture. SoC architects will be able to integrate an optimal AI inferencing solution in a range of products, including intelligent sensors, IoT and mobile devices, cameras, hearables/wearables, PCs, AR/VR headsets and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). New hardware and performance enhancements and key features/capabilities include:
The single core NPUs are scalable from 8GOPS to 80TOPS, with further extension to hundreds of TOPS with multi-core devices, said Cadence. They support 256 to 32K MACs per cycle, allowing SoC architects to optimise embedded AI to meet power, performance and area (PPA) tradeoffs.
Offloading of inferencing tasks from any host processor (e.g., DSPs, general-purpose microcontrollers or application processors) significantly improves system performance and power, said Cadence.
Support for Int4, Int8, Int16 and FP16 data types across a wide set of operations that form the basis of CNN, RNN and transformer-based networks allows flexibility in neural network performance and accuracy tradeoffs while the NPUs offer up to 20 times higher performance than the first-generation Cadence AI IP, with two to five time the inferences per second per area (IPS/mm2) and five to 10 times the inferences per second per Watt (IPS/W)

Upgrades to the common software toolchain include the NeuroWeave software development kit (SDK). Providing customers with a uniform, scalable and configurable software stack across Tensilica DSPs, controllers and Neo NPUs to address all target applications, the NeuroWeave SDK streamlines product development and enables an easy migration as design requirements evolve. It supports many industry-standard domain-specific ML frameworks, including TensorFlow, ONNX, PyTorch, Caffe2, TensorFlow Lite, MXNet and JAX for automated end-to-end code generation, together with Android Neural Network Compiler; TF Lite Delegates for real-time execution and TensorFlow Lite Micro for microcontroller-class devices.
The Neo NPUs and the NeuroWeave SDK are expected to be in general availability beginning in December 2023.

http://www.cadence.com

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STM32H5 discovery kit builds a case for secure, smart, connected devices

Fri, Sep 15, 2023

Support for Secure Manager, a turnkey SoC which integrates core security services certified and maintained by ST is included in the STM32H5 discovery kit by STMicroelectronics.
The development board is for creating diverse applications with the company’s STM32H5 microcontrollers. The STM32H5 devices are intended for high performance processing and advanced security in a wide range of applications, including smart sensors, smart appliances, industrial controllers, networking equipment, personal electronics and medical devices.   The STM32H573I-DK discovery kit enables developers to explore all the integrated features of the STM32H5, such as analogue peripherals, timers, the ST ART (Adaptive Real-Time) accelerator, media interfaces and mathematical accelerators. This makes it easy to evaluate new designs for industrial programmable logic controllers (PLC), motor drives, and smart controllers for appliances, for example, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. Other potential applications include alarm controllers, communication hubs and smart lighting controls.
The STM32H573I-DK Discovery kit is a development board that includes an STM32H5 microcontroller, colour touch display, digital microphone, and interfaces such as USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi. The board also features an audio codec, flash memory, and headers for connecting expansion shields and daughterboards.
To simplify the development process, the STM32CubeH5 microcontroller software package consolidates all the necessary components required to develop an application on the STM32H5, including examples and application code. The package is fully integrated into the STM32Cube ecosystem, which contains additional software to assist with application development. ST also offers the STM32CubeMX tool for configuring and initialising the microcontroller.
The STM32H5 microcontroller features the Arm Cortex-M33 embedded microcontroller core running at 250MHz and is the first microcontroller to support ST’s Secure Manager SoC security solutions. The microcontrollers combine Arm TrustZone security with ST’s STM32Trust framework to provide trusted storage, cryptography, attestation and updates. They embed side-channel protected hardware cryptographic accelerators and target recognised security certifications, PSA Certified Level 3 and GlobalPlatform SESIP3.
ST has created the STM32H573I-DK Discovery kit with examples showing how to use the security services and integrated all the necessary software tools and support in the STM32Cube development ecosystem.
The Discovery kit as well as the H5 Nucleo Board Nucleo-H563ZI are available now available from ST’s eStore and authorised distributors.

https://www.st.com

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Qualcomm launches next-generation XR and AR platforms

Contactless connections simplify and streamline design, says Molex

IP and SDK accelerate on-device and edge AI design, says Cadence

STM32H5 discovery kit builds a case for secure, smart, connected devices

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