Page 27 - EETimes Europe June 2021

EE|Times EUROPE 27
EE|Times EUROPE 27
Synaptics Makes a Natural Progression to Edge AI
A44E_EE TIMES_Euro_2-0625x9-5.qxp_A44.qxd

DC-DC CONVERTERS
DC-DC CONVERTERS
2V to 10,000 VDC Outputs
2V to 10,000 VDC Outputs
1-300 Watt Modules
1-300 Watt Modules
Regulated/Proportional/Programmable
Regulated/Proportional/Programmable
Isolated/Single/Dual Outputs
Isolated/Single/Dual Outputs
High Reliability
High Reliability
Greater than 1,000,000 hrs.
Greater than 1,000,000 hrs.
Mil Hbk 217F
Mil Hbk 217F
• •
Military Upgrades
Military Upgrades
Expanded operating temperature
Expanded operating temperature
-55º to +85º C, no derating required
-55º to +85º C, no derating required
Super resolution using the VS680 AI scaler (Source: Synaptics)
• •
Environmental Screening
Environmental Screening
sensors, and wireless communications, which The SoC is coupled with Eta Compute’s tool Selected Screening, Mil Std 883
Selected Screening, Mil Std 883
are also part of our portfolio,” he said. “If you chain, which makes it easy for customers to • •
want to run on, for example, four AA batteries port their networks. ULTRA Miniature
ULTRA Miniature
for two years, Katana is a platform that, under “We gain a great deal of efficiency for the From 0.5" x 0.5" x 0.2"
From 0.5" x 0.5" x 0.2"
appropriate use cases and conditions, could particular networks we have in mind by archi- • •
operate on that kind of time frame.” tecting our own MPU solutions, so we have Surface Mount/Thru-Hole
Surface Mount/Thru-Hole
Worfolk also showcased the more powerful all the right features in our silicon, and then
• Custom Models
VS680 multimedia SoC in an AI-based scaling we add the NPU that is tailored for what we • US Manufactured
application. The demo showed how the chip expect some of those verticals will need and • AS9100D Approved
can be used for super-resolution enhance- make it broad and flexible enough to go into
ment, upscaling from full HD to 4K using a adjacent markets,” said Worfolk. High Reliability AC/DC
neural-network–based upscaler, which shows “I suspect that many companies have fairly Power Supplies, Transformers
crisper and sharper images than are possible similar architectures, so it really is a matter and Inductors
with a traditional hardware-scaling algorithm. of sizing the compute engines, the memory, VISIT OUR EXCITING
“There is a lot of specsmanship in silicon, and then the interfaces to the sensors,” he NEW WEBSITE
but at the end of the day, you want to know said. “When you know what neural network www.picoelectronics.com
if your deep neural network runs efficiently you want to run and the resources it requires, Featuring our easy-to-use
product Search Wizard!
or effectively on the device or not,” he said. you can make sure that you don’t run into any
“So the goal of the presentation [was] to bottlenecks. So there is a bunch of co-
discuss sample applications that can run on engineering between the very bottom, [which
Synaptics devices.” is] the hardware design; the top, [which is]
So how do you select the example the neural-network–model architecture;
application? and then the tools that map that neural-
“As we do our MRD [market requirements network–model architecture all the way down
AS9100D
document] and PRD [product requirements to running on the hardware. By considering all CERTIFIED
TUV
document] for the chip, there are particular those together, that is where you can have a
applications that we target, those that we real competitive advantage.” See PICO’s full line catalog at
view as flagship applications for the piece of A lot of companies don’t have their own AI www.picoelectronics.com
silicon, and that drives the demo,” said Wor- teams, so they are learning about AI even as YOUR PROVEN SOURCE.
folk. “We want something that is sufficiently they look to integrate it into their products, Over 50 years providing reliable
challenging to show off the competitive Worfolk said. To support such companies, products. Over 2,500 Standard Modules.
advantages, but we also want a demo that has Synaptics has partners who can either train or Pico Representatives
broad interest and is representative of what optimize the models or support the tools. England
customers might want to do.” He views partnerships as a way to fill the Solid State Supplies/Ginsbury
E-mail: russell.bennett@sssltd.com
An example is the people counter for the company’s gaps, particularly in the IoT space, Phone: 44 1634 298900 • Fax: 44 1634 290904
conference room, which shows off the chip’s where there is a broad range of applications and Belgium/Luxemburg/France
ability to run an object-detection network at customers who do not have expertise in AI. ■ Netherlands/Scandinavia
ELCOS/BVBA
relatively low power, Worfolk said. E-mail: info@elcos.be
The Katana SoC is based on the company’s Gina Roos is editor-in-chief of Electronic Phone: 32 3 218 20 73 • www.elcos.be

custom NPU architecture and proprietary Products. Germany
DSPs. It also includes an off-the-shelf CPU ELBV/Electra Bauemente Vertrieb
E-mail: info@elbv.de
and DSP to make it easy for its customers to This article originally ran on Electronic Phone: 49 089 460205442
run their algorithms on the chip, he said. Products. Fax: 49 089 460205442
www.eetimes.eu | JUNE 2021