Cambridge, UK. 26 April 2022 – Arm is delivering on its Total Solutions for IoT roadmap, with two new solutions for Arm® Cortex®-M and Cortex-A processors, streamlining and accelerating the IoT and embedded development process. As part of the expanded roadmap, Arm is launching the Arm Cortex-M85 processor, said to be the highest-performing and most secure Cortex-M to date, and expanding Arm Virtual Hardware to more platforms, including 3rd party devices, to make the development process more accessible.
“Developers drive the future of the IoT, but they face an ever-increasing demand for higher performance, increased security and less complex development flows,” says Mohamed Awad, vice president of IoT and Embedded at Arm. “The IoT runs on Arm, and we have a responsibility to create greater opportunities for IoT innovation and scale by continually raising the bar on performance, simplified development, and software reuse for our ecosystem.”
When Arm Total Solutions for IoT launched six months ago it signified a radical shift in the design approach for the IoT and embedded markets, combining hardware IP, platform software, machine learning (ML) models, tools and much more to simplify development and accelerate product design. At the heart of Total Solutions is Arm Corstone, a pre-integrated, pre-verified IP subsystem that frees silicon designers to focus their time and efforts on differentiation.
Launching today, the Arm Total Solution for Cloud Native Edge Devices is the first designed for Cortex-A and based on Corstone-1000. It makes the power and potential of platform operating systems like Linux easily available to IoT developers, for the first time. It allows application-class workloads to be developed for devices such as smart wearables, gateways, and high-end smart cameras. Since the Corstone-1000 is Arm SystemReady-IR compliant and features a hardware secure enclave that supports PSA Certified for a higher level of security, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can immediately enjoy the benefits of Project Cassini.
Arm’s new Total Solution for Voice Recognition is based on the Corstone-310 subsystem. It is preintegrated with the new Cortex-M85 and the Arm Ethos-U55 to create Arm’s highest ever performance MCU-based design. The solution is targeted at use-cases ranging from smart speakers and thermostats to drones and factory robots. Developers can also take the Corstone-310 and create a whole range of additional high-performance products by combining it with different reference software.
Arm Cortex-M85: Setting a new standard for secure, high-performance microcontrollers. The Arm Cortex-M85 is the highest performance Cortex-M processor to date and is a natural architectural upgrade path to Armv8-M for applications requiring significantly higher performance. It offers:
• A 30% scalar performance uplift compared to the Cortex-M7
• Arm Helium™ technology to support endpoint ML and DSP workloads
• Enhanced security with Arm TrustZone technology. It also includes Pointer Authentication an Branch Target Identification (PACBTI), a new architectural feature with enhanced software attack threat mitigation to help achieve PSA Certified Level 2, a security baseline for IoT deployments
Arm Virtual Hardware is a transformative offering, designed to enable software development in advance of silicon. It allows the Arm ecosystem to easily adopt cloud-based development and CI/CD, without the need for large custom hardware farms. Hundreds of developers have used Arm Virtual Hardware to dat and based on developer feedback, Arm is announcing several new virtual devices to broaden Arm Virtual Hardware’s appeal. New additions will include Arm Virtual Hardware for the new Corstone designs as well as 7 Cortex-M processors ranging from Cortex-M0 to Cortex-M33. Arm is further expanding the library with third party hardware from partners including NXP, ST Microelectronics and Raspberry Pi.
By extending Arm Virtual Hardware to ecosystem devices and the vast majority of the Cortex-M product line, independent software vendors and cloud service providers can now take advantage of the billions of Arm-based IoT and embedded devices which are already deployed.
In order to scale, the Cortex-M software ecosystem needs to coalesce around a consistent set of standards that enable the portability and re-use of software across a range of devices. Project Centauri was launched to deliver exactly that, so developers can focus on what really matters innovation and differentiation. It includes Open-CMSIS-Pack, which is already supported by 9,500 microcontrollers and 450 boards, enabling software vendors to easily scale their offerings across all of these devices.
Today, Arm continues to invest in Project Centauri by delivering the first release of the Open IoT SDK Framework. This contains the new Open-CMSIS-CDI software standard, a community driven project hosted in Linaro that defines a Common Device Interface (CDI) for the Cortex-M ecosystem. Eight key industry players are already involved including silicon partners, cloud service providers, ODMs and OEMs.
The IoT and embedded market is incredibly diverse and serves everything from sensors to robotics, smart speakers, appliances, storage controllers and computer vision. In a market this broad, streamlining development is critical, and today’s announcements reinforce why Arm is positioned to lead the IoT ecosystem forward, ignite growth and value creation across the IoT economy.
“As the IoT continues to evolve, the integration of open-source platforms for deep learning with SoC design platforms will hugely increase the efficiency of smart device development. With the deep integration of the PaddlePaddle (PP) industry-level model library and inference capability with Arm Virtual Hardware, developers can quickly and efficiently deploy the PP-series models, one of the most popular industry-grade models on GitHub, on Cortex-M based hardware, to quickly complete the prototype validation of endpoint AI systems.” says Qiao Zhao, head of paddlePaddle product team, Baidu.
“We believe the accelerating pace of software development for IoT is on par with web and mobile applications. IoT developers need end–to-end DevOps solutions to rapidly develop, test and deploy new connected services. Arm Virtual Hardware empowers developers to test software for Arm-powered IoT devices directly in the cloud and build on GitLab’s proven Enterprise DevOps Platform, utilizing the same development, continuous integration and delivery tools used by millions of developers.” says Nima Badiey, VP of global alliances, GitLab.
“Building on the strength of the Arm Cortex-M platform, the Renesas family of RA microcontrollers has experienced fantastic market success, breaking records within Renesas for the fastest adoption of a new MCU family. As we expand our high performance and advanced IoT security MCU business, Renesas welcomes the timely introduction of Cortex-M85, providing industry breakthrough performance. In addition, Arm Virtual Hardware will complement our rich software development ecosystem to expand the reach of this platform, offering a great user experience for developers worldwide.” says Sailesh Chittipeddi, EVP & GM, IoT and infrastructure business unit, Renesas.
Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_OR @jcIoTnow
