Arm has unveiled its Cortex-M52, a highly efficient processor integrated with Arm Helium technology, delivering enhanced AI capabilities for lower-cost IoT devices. The Cortex-M line offers the flexibility to adapt to various performance levels and configurations, eliminating the need for a separate unit for digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities, resulting in significant savings in both area and cost.
The new lineup offers simplified development flows that bring AI within reach on a single toolchain and a single proven architecture.
“Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are grabbing headlines, but many don’t realise how much AI is already deployed in embedded devices and impacting applications across our homes, cities, and in industry – this is referred to as the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT), and it’s being built on Arm,” Paul Williamson, an SVP and GM of the IoT LoB at Arm, said. “AI is critical to understanding data and enabling more seamless interactions between the physical and digital worlds.”
As this technology advances, on-device intelligence is being deployed in smaller, more cost-sensitive, and often battery-powered devices at the lowest cost points, with greater privacy and reliability due to less reliance on the cloud. As AI-enabled IoT shipments continue to increase, Arm partners need access to more machine learning (ML) capabilities and simpler development flows to give them the agility to innovate and scale quickly.
To address these requirements, the Cambridge, U.K.-headquartered company announced the Arm Cortex-M52, designed for AIoT applications that require a boost in DSP and ML performance without the cost overhead of dedicated DSP and ML accelerators. Cortex-M52 will unlock the potential for delivering ML on embedded computing solutions at lower price points than is currently possible.
Bringing AI capabilities to a broader range of IoT devices
The Cortex-M52 includes Arm Helium technology, providing a significant performance uplift in DSP and ML applications for small, low-power embedded devices, making it possible to deploy more compute-intensive ML inference algorithms in endpoints without a dedicated NPU, according to Williamson. “Helium technology has already been implemented successfully in products at the far edge of the network, but the Cortex-M52 now enables Arm partners to take this capability into lower cost more power-constrained devices,” he added.
By extending Helium technology into a new class of Cortex-M, Arm is delivering a step change in matrix and DSP computing on microcontrollers for smaller embedded devices. The Cortex-M52 provides a simplified migration path from the Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M4, addressing a wide range of AIoT applications to enable richer UI, voice, and vision experiences, such as automotive and industrial control, predictive maintenance, and wearable sensor fusion. Cortex-M52 delivers the flexibility needed to scale across a range of performance points and configurations, providing DSP capabilities without a separate processing unit, and saving on silicon area and cost.
Providing optimal performance and cost choice with robust safety and security
Cortex-M52 extends the Armv8.1-M Cortex-M line-up (which includes the Cortex-M55 and Cortex-M85) to a new efficiency point, a critical milestone in bringing ML capabilities to microcontrollers. It provides the lowest area and power implementation of any Helium-enabled Cortex-M, offering choice to silicon partners looking to trade off performance and cost. Developers can benefit from an uplift in both ML and DSP performance, with up to 5.6 times a performance uplift for ML and up to 2.7 times a performance uplift for digital signal processing compared to previous Cortex-M generations.
Security remains critical in devices, especially when shipping at a large scale, and Cortex-M52 implements the latest security extensions for Armv8.1-M, including PACBTI and Arm TrustZone technology, which offer enhanced software threat mitigation. In addition, Cortex-M52 will accelerate the route to PSA-certified Level 2 silicon, enabling the next generation of PSA-certified devices.
The latest Armv8.1-M cores (including Cortex-M55 and Cortex-M85) also offer enhanced functional safety features that are crucial in many automotive and industrial control applications. The Cortex-M52 delivers these extended safety packages and features to help partners reach FuSa certification faster and more easily, compared to previous generation Cortex-Ms being deployed in these applications.
Simplifying AI development for the smallest endpoint devices
“Traditional embedded developers grapple with the mathematical, data analysis, toolchain expertise, and programming skills required for AI,” Williamson added. “Developer enablement is critical if we are to see an increase in AIoT shipments, and with the Cortex-M52 we’re delivering the critical features and capabilities required in a modern development flow today.”
Arm is now bringing AI within reach on a single toolchain and a single proven architecture with the industry-standard, user-friendly Arm Cortex-M portfolio. This ensures a unified development flow for traditional, DSP, and ML workloads, while specific integration and optimisations for ML frameworks will ensure that developers have a seamless experience and get the best performance from any Cortex-M.
Cortex-M52 is fully software compatible with Cortex-M55 and Cortex-M85, enabling developers to benefit from and leverage the growing software and tools ecosystem around Helium, as well as free software libraries and an extensive knowledge base from the company’s partner ecosystem. To help streamline and accelerate the IoT and embedded development processes, Cortex-M52 will also be available on Arm Virtual Hardware, its cloud-based offering that enables software development in advance of silicon.
Deploying AI across full spectrum of AIoT use cases, built on Arm
“The AIoT runs on Arm and together with our partners, we identified a need to bring DSP and ML compute performance to low-power embedded applications at a better cost and accessibility point for the market,” Williamson added. “The Cortex-M52 CPU delivers higher levels of AI inference performance on the smallest devices, enabling the industry to scale IoT device deployments even further.”
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