Cover story
Lowest-power and smallest form- factor embedded vision solutions with PolarFire FPGAs and CoaXPress transceivers
Develop the next-generation of intelligent vision platforms Figure 1: CXP host and device boards
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n recent years, there has been an explosive demand for high-resolution, bandwidth-hungry imaging technologies that integrate Artifi cial Intelligence (AI) with an increased focus on real-time analytics and edge computing. Edge computing, unlike centralised cloud computing, is distributed computing that
improves response times and saves bandwidth by making compute resources available close to the data sources. With the ever-burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT), an increasing number of commercial and industrial applications are relying on an interconnected web of sensor-based, digital and mechanical machines to monitor and control tasks. At the core of the IoT are wireless-enabled embedded systems, real-time analytics and machine learning (ML) inference.
Implementation challenges and requirements These systems evidently constitute two core elements – a computing system and a transport mechanism. Challenges in designing such systems include efficient accelerated performance with predictable outcomes plus a fl exible, error-free serial link that supports high data rates and are scalable. However, the most signifi cant design constraints for an edge computing device are power and size – some of these devices could be deployed in remote locations or might require an uninterrupted power supply for
06 November 2021
www.electronicsworld.co.uk
critical applications while conforming to strict form-factor requirements such as in automotive vision systems, military surveillance, medical equipment, high-precision industrial tools and more.
Microchip’s comprehensive solutions Fully aware of the need for intelligent vision systems and their associated challenges, we at Microchip have developed the lowest power, smallest form factor, cost-optimised solution for all your multi-Gigabit, uncompressed, video and data needs. The solution integrates our PolarFire Field- Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) with our CoaXPress 2.0 transceivers to enable high-speed serial transmission of imaging data from multiple cameras to the FPGA for image signal processing. Microchip offers a complete reference design: PolarFire
CoaXPress 12G Design, that includes evaluation hardware, intellectual property and user documentation to accelerate your development time.
Reference design description The PolarFire CoaXPress 12G Design employs dual 4K camera sensors connected to a PolarFire MPF100T FPGA over the MIPI CSI-2 protocol. The FPGA performs an 8b/10b encoding operation and re-organises the incoming stream into data packets defi ned by the CoaXPress protocol. This
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