IoT everywhere
To many covering this field it does seem like we’ve been talking about
the IoT and its impact for a very long time. While Awad agreed, he
believes that what we are now seeing is far greater sophistication when
it comes to the IoT – with a host of “weird and wonderful things” now
becoming available.
“A lot has been achieved but when you look at the IoT today it’s
about combining the intelligence of all end-points and that’s really what
has changed. Before it was about a limited amount of insight from one
device – and while there’s some value in that, the real value comes
from AI type intelligence from many connected devices.”
Awad expects that endpoint AI (IoT endpoint devices locally
processing data into actionable insights) will accelerate the value
generated from the IoT and, in turn, will help to drive much greater
adoption with the mass deployment of efficient and intelligent
endpoint AI.
That’s the stage Awad argues we are at but it’s not something, he
concedes, that will be easy to achieve.
So Arm is aiming to, “simplify that vision and make it easier to
generate insights from those intelligent endpoints - the broader
ecosystem needs to be able to create and unlock that value so people
can focus on innovating new applications,” said Awad.
“Arm is looking to leverage its AI capabilities and to unleash a
number of technology enhancements to accelerate IoT development.”
Awad highlighted three important updates that Arm has recently
announced: these include expanding the endpoint AI capabilities of the
Arm Flexible Access portfolio with the inclusion of the Arm Cortex-M55
and Ethos-U55; a new Roadmap Guarantee for Arm Flexible Access
customers and increased focus on software investment in order to
simplify development and, “unleash the potential of Arm’s diverse IoT
ecosystem.”
While the development of endpoint AI will help to accelerate the
value generated from IoT and drive much greater adoption, “It will need
to be delivered at a cost point and within a power budget that enables
mass deployment that’s delivered both efficiently and cost effectively.”
To deliver on this, last year Arm introduced the industry’s first
microNPU, the Ethos-U55, and the Cortex-M55 microcontroller.
“These devices, along with the recently unveiled Ethos-U65,
bring the same capability to higher performance points and extend
microNPU applicability to Cortex-A based systems.”
Arm has also looked to accelerate endpoint AI
deployments by expanding its Flexible Access
portfolio to include both Cortex-M55
and Ethos-U55, giving its partners
much greater freedom to
explore, experiment and
design with products,
“without any up-front
license costs,”
added Awad.
The launch of
the Flexible Access
“From smart healthcare to remote
monitoring, from industrial robotics to
the connected home we are, in many
respects, still at the beginning of this
revolution in connectivity.”
programme in 2019 has seen more than 100 companies, from
start-ups to established semiconductor companies signing up –
many of which are first-time Arm silicon partners.
According to Awad as more companies join the programme so
Arm will look to evolve it further.
“We need to ensure they have the confidence to develop the
long-term roadmaps their IoT solutions will require, so we have
introduced the Roadmap Guarantee for Flexible Access.”
The Roadmap Guarantee ensures that Arm will continue to offer
the CPUs included in the Flexible Access portfolio for five years, and
Arm has committed itself to adding future Cortex-M and Ethos-U
products to the Flexible Access programme shortly after they come
to market.
The work being undertaken by Arm is also to the benefit of the
software developer ecosystem.
“We are committed to making the software development
experience on Arm as seamless and simple as possible,
alongside embedded edge and endpoint devices,” said Awad.
According to Awad, Arm’s ecosystem will remain focused on
ensuring all of the varied and evolving workloads are portable,
maintainable, and easily deployed across devices and operating
systems and will be able to seamlessly connect to any cloud
service.
“Efforts like Project Cassini, which is an open, standardsbased
initiative looks to deliver a cloud-native software experience
across a secure Arm edge ecosystem.
“We’ve talked about the ‘weird’ and ‘wonderful’ devices that
the IoT is creating, but that makes it very difficult to develop the
necessary software to support them, especially without prior
knowledge of the device. It can be a real challenge if only a
limited number of developers can engage easily with a specific
platform.”
Arm is now focused on expanding collaborations with a host
of partners to deliver a unified and streamlined AI experience for
developers.
Awad concluded, “Arm technology had a particularly important
role in enabling the smartphone revolution that has changed the
way we use technology forever.
“When it comes to the IoT, Arm is once again about enabling
innovation and allowing people to build on the opportunities it
affords and delivering more from accelerating the IoT revolution.”
www.newelectronics.co.uk 26 January 2021 15
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