CEVA, Inc, licensor of signal processing IP for smarter, connected devices, has introduced a new DSP-based offering bringing deep learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities to low-power embedded systems.
A comprehensive, scalable, integrated hardware and software silicon IP platform that is centered around a new imaging and vision DSP – the CEVA-XM6 – allows developers to efficiently harness the power of neural networks and machine vision for smartphones, autonomous vehicles, surveillance, robots, drones and other camera-enabled smart devices.
Compared to the previous generation CEVA-XM4 intelligent vision DSP, the new CEVA-XM6-based vision platform delivers up to 8x higher performance for neural network workloads and up to 3x performance improvement across all computer vision kernels. Key enhancements introduced in the new architecture include a new vector and scalar processing units and substantial enhancements to instruction set, memory bandwidth and direct memory access (DMA).
The new vision platform further extends CEVA’s performance advantage over leading GPU-based architectures when implementing neural networks. Compared to a leading GPU-based embedded system for computer vision and deep learning, CEVA’s latest imaging and vision platform delivers more than 25x performance-per-watt efficiency and 4x faster processing for convolutional neural networks (CNNs) such as AlexNet and GoogLeNet.
Ilan Yona, vice president and general manager of the Vision Business Unit at CEVA, commented, “As computer vision and deep learning technologies become mainstream, there is a need to bridge the gap between the deep neural networks that are being generated by power-consuming GPU engines and the ability to deploy these in power- and performance-constrained embedded applications. Our new vision platform excels in this regard, providing developers with the most comprehensive set of technologies to rapidly address these embedded use-cases.”
The vision platform integrates a wealth of software and hardware IPs that provide time-to-market and power advantages for deploying machine vision and deep learning in embedded systems. Alongside the CEVA-XM6 DSP itself, the platform includes function-specific accelerators for CNN and image de-warp (for all types of image transformations), CEVA’s highly-acclaimed CDNN2 neural network software framework, OpenCV, OpenCL and OpenVX APIs, CEVA-CV computer vision library and a set of optimised, widely used algorithms.
Commenting on today’s launch, Jeff Bier, founder, Embedded Vision Alliance, explained, “Designers of a wide range of end-products are eager to incorporate visual intelligence into their designs. Often, the vision and deep learning algorithms used by these developers demand very high processing performance in a low-cost, low-power, programmable form. I applaud CEVA for its long-term commitment to delivering processors and software tools focused on meeting these needs.”
A video introducing the CEVA-XM6 can be viewed on the CEVA YouTube Channel at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCQizbzYW0.
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