Microchip Adds Second Development Tool Offering for Designers Using Its Low-Power PolarFire RISC-V SoC FPGA for Embedded Vision Applications at the Edge

November 23, 2021

News

Microchip Technology announced the second development tool offering in its Smart Embedded Vision initiative for designers using its PolarFire RISC-V System on Chip (SoC) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

According to the company, the PolarFire device is the only mid-range device of its kind that simultaneously supports dual 4K video processing and quad core RISC-V application-class processors running both the Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and operating systems like Linux. 

Microchip’s Smart Embedded Vision development platform joins the company’s previously announced VectorBlox software development kit (SDK) and IP for using the PolarFire devices to program a trained neural network without prior FPGA expertise. The latest offering is designed to simplify edge-compute solution development in the thermally challenging environments of the IIoT and factory automation applications.

The platform’s IP, hardware and tools for these solutions include:

• Embedded Vision – Supports the following: dual 4K MIPI CSI-2 cameras; HDMI 2.0 with expansion based on the FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC); CoaXPress 2.0; SDI (6 Gbps and 12 Gbps); Universal Serial 10 GE Media Independent Interface (USXGMII) MAC IP with auto-negotiation; and USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 protocols.
• IIoT and factory automation – Enables: Wi-Fi/Bluetooth; USB 2.0; SD Card; Embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC); fully integrated Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) endpoint and root port functionality configured for four lanes; and a mikroBUS connector that can be used with Microchip’s Trust&GO platform for secure cloud connectivity.

The platform includes support for Microchip’s Mi-V RISC-V ecosystem including development tools from AdaCore, Green Hills Software, Mentor Graphics, and Wind River. Commercial RTOS solutions are available including VxWorks and Nucleus, and free ones include Zephyr and FreeRTOS. Middleware solutions are available from DornerWorks, Hex Five, and Veridify Security.

Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGAs combine thermal efficiency, and defense-grade security for smart, connected systems with, according to the company, half the power consumption of alternatives. The PolarFire SoC and the Smart Embedded Vision Platform offer designers the choice of rich operating system-based edge compute, hard real-time, with large 2 MB memory and mixed real-time plus OS support. Users can learn one platform and serve three applications. 

Microchip’s Smart Embedded Vision development platform is available now and PolarFire SoC FPGAs are in production. 

For more information, visit: www.microchip.com.