Lattice & Etron Offer Design for Edge AI and Video Processing Applications

According to a recent announcement, Lattice Semiconductor and Etron have together released a memory controller reference design for Etron’s low pin-count RPC DRAM designed to enable low power Edge AI and video processing in applications requiring a compact form factor, including industrial cameras, drones, AR/VR systems, and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).

A low power ECP5 FPGA reportedly provides processing for the AI or smart vision workload and serves as the memory controller for Etron’s high performance RPC DRAM. The company says that the new reference design reduces power consumption, overall design size, and data latency by allowing developers to store data used in AI and smart vision applications locally instead of using larger, external memory cards.

 “This collaboration between our two companies - leaders in low power, small form factor FPGAs and DRAM memory technologies - has broad implications for the ongoing development of Edge AI devices,” said Kambiz Khalilian, Director, Strategic Alliances, Lattice Semiconductor. “Not only does the reference design enable form factor and processing capabilities specifically tailored for implementation on Edge devices, it does so without requiring expertise in FPGA-based design thanks to our user-friendly design tools and our powerful sensAI software stack.”

The reference design reportedly includes software development tools, featuring a GUI-based memory code generator tool and a Verilog simulation model. Application demonstrations featuring the Lattice sensAI solutions stack and the RPC DRAM memory controller reference design will be available from Etron in the third quarter of this year.

“Our work with Lattice makes it possible for customers to develop devices with the low power computational resources needed to deliver ‘always-on’ intelligence at the Edge,” said Chung W. Lam, President, Etron Technology America. “Developers serving markets like industrial, automotive, and consumer are racing to differentiate their products by adding intelligence to them, so access to easy-to-use reference designs like this will be invaluable to their efforts.”