Edge AI space benchmark results released on latest gen AI-enabled MCUs

Alif Semiconductor has released benchmarks on its latest E4, E6 and E8 MCUs and fusion processors, extending Alif's advantage in the AI MCU market.

The company has been a trendsetter in this field since 2021, when it introduced its NPU-enabled MCUs to market. Today it further demonstrates leadership in Edge AI with its latest series of Ensemble MCUs. The E4, E6 and E8 are all able to perform generative AI workloads locally. Also, they contain other new features that make them excellent for high-performance data processing and imaging tasks.

The new devices contain support for up to two MIPI-CSI image sensors. They also include a fully hardware-accelerated ISP pipeline that operates at up to 60fps at 2MP resolution. This image throughput is enabled with a new wide memory subsystem for extremely fast on-chip as well as off-chip transactions, pushing inferencing speed well below a millisecond when running AI models from internal, highly power-efficient MRAM.

The generative AI capability in the devices is made possible by the company's future-proof system architecture. It is the first silicon provider to offer the Arm Ethos-U85 NPU, which supports transformer-based ML networks. As an example of power efficiency, an SLM executed on an E4 device draws only 36mW of power when generating text to construct a story based on a user-provided prompt.

These levels of performance and efficiency allow developers to innovate next-generation products in human-to-computer interfacing, healthcare and diagnostics, robotics, transportation, toys and education, smart homes, and smart city equipment.

Reza Kazerounian, president of Alif Semiconductor, said: "With the E4, E6 and E8 series of Ensemble GenAI products, Alif continues to push the envelope of edge AI applications. While existing market solutions are built for real-time control, and not for AI, Alif built an AI-ready architecture from the start. That's why Alif customers are now able to use the E4, E6 and E8 devices to implement transformer-based models and generative AI in edge and endpoint products powered by a small battery."

Paul Williamson, senior vice president and general manager, IoT Line of Business at Arm, said: "Generative AI is raising the bar for intelligence beyond the cloud, demanding greater performance, privacy, responsiveness, and efficiency. Powered by Arm Ethos technology and supported by our robust software ecosystem, Alif's latest Ensemble MCUs bring advanced on-device AI capabilities to even the most constrained devices, unlocking real-time insights in applications like health monitoring and wearables. This enables developers to deliver the next generation of intelligent, on-device experiences."