NXP Unveils the i.MX RT700 Microcontroller, Promises Near-Two Hundred Times the Edge AI Performance
eIQ Neutron coprocessor offers a claimed 172x improvement in image classification tasks at up to 119x the energy efficiency of a CPU alone.
NXP Semiconductors has unveiled the i.MX RT700 "crossover" microcontroller, with which it's hoping to make a dent in the growing energy demand of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) at the edge — through an eIQ Neutron coprocessor claimed to deliver up to a 172x speed boost with a 119x energy reduction.
"As pioneers of the crossover MCU [Microcontroller Unit], we're not just advancing products with the i.MX RT700," boasts NXP's Charles Dachs of the company's latest launch, "we're redefining what’s possible at the edge. The i.MX RT700 provides significant enhancements in power consumption and efficiency, enabling breakthroughs that extend battery life and ensure reliability in resource-constrained applications. Additionally, the integration of our eIQ Neutron NPU [Neural Processing Unit] enables customers to build innovative machine learning applications, improving AI and multi-tasking capabilities of low-power edge devices."
The heart of the i.MX RT700 is an Arm Cortex-M33 core running at up to 325MHz, with a Cadence Tensilica HiFi 4 digital signal processor (DSP) at its side. There's up to 7.5MB of low-power zero-wait-state static RAM (SRAM), which seems excessive until you reach the part's third core: the eIQ Neutron, designed for on-device machine learning and artificial intelligence acceleration. This, NXP claims, can handle a task like anomaly detection 18 times faster and image classification 172 times faster than the Cortex-M33 core alone — and completes its work with up to 119 times the energy efficiency.
An edge AI system needs data, though, and here the i.MX RT700 has another pair of processing cores: a second Cortex-M33 and a HiFI1 DSP, both running at up to 250MHz, designed to act as an ultra-low-power "sense compute subsystem" — doing away with the need for an external sensor hub, the company says. All told, the parts are claimed to offer a 30-70 per cent improvement in power consumption over the company's previous generation. This even extends to its USB 2.0 support: the i.MX RT700 is NXP's first to support the eUSB standard, which allows 1V or 1.2V logic in place of 3.3V logic. Finally, there's a RISC-V-based "2.5D" graphics processor, delivering up to 720p60 over an LCD or MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI).
The i.MX RT700 series is sampling now for "qualified early-access customers," NXP says; more information is available on the company's website.