SolidRun's Hummingboard 8P Edge AI Packs a Punch Thanks to an NXP i.MX 8M Plus and Hailo-8

Embedded edge computing specialist SolidRun has launched a new computing board combining an NXP Semiconductors i.MX 8M Plus system-on-chip (SOC) with a Hailo-8 artificial intelligence (AI) coprocessor: the Hummingboard 8P Edge AI.

"Our vision has always been to simplify the complex world of embedded systems and empower engineers to innovate without constraints," claims SolidRun's Sasha Strizhiver. "Our new Hummingboard 8P Edge AI SBC [Single-Board Computer] encapsulates this vision, offering a total package that combines cutting-edge AI inference capabilities and broad industry support with ease of use. We believe in enabling our customers to focus solely on realizing their product vision, and with this kit, we've created an integrated solution that does just that."

The new board isn't a true single-board computer, as the kit actually includes three main boards: a system-on-module (SOM) based on the NXP i.MX 8M Plus SOC slots into the Hummingboard 8P carrier board alongside an M.2 module hosting the Hailo-8 accelerator, while a radio module adds Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. A passive heatsink keeps the system running cool, and for anyone working with computer vision there's an optional Basler daA3840-30mc 4k image sensor, supporting 30 frames per second (FPS) capture at eight megapixels.

The board's main processor offers four Arm Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.8GHz and an integrated neural processing unit (NPU) coprocessor running at a claimed 2.3 tera-operations per second (TOPS) — a welcome bonus, but eclipsed by the claimed 26 TOPS of compute available from the Hailo-8 chip. The system also includes an Arm Cortex-M7 core for real-time workloads, a Tensilica HiFi 4 digital signal processor (DSP), and GC7000UL 3D graphics and GC520L 2D graphics acceleration. To this, SolidRun has added a choice of 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4 memory and up to 128GB of eMMC storage.

Elsewhere on the board is the aforementioned radio module, offering 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 connectivity, two gigabit Ethernet ports with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support, two MIPI Camera Serial Interfaces (CSIs), one each of a full-size and micro-HDMI port, USB 3.0, microSD, and I2C, UART, and CAN bus support. On the software side, SolidRun supplies a board support package (BSP) pre-loaded on an SD Card and promises broad AI framework support including TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, Keras, PyTorch, and ONNX.

"The Hummingboard 8P Edge AI SBC from SolidRun represents a significant milestone in edge AI development solutions," says Hailo's Yaron Ofer of SolidRun's launch. "With its exceptional performance and unparalleled energy efficiency, it empowers engineers to unlock the full potential of AI applications at the Edge and harness the capabilities of our remarkably powerful Hailo-8 chip to drive innovation."

The Solid Run Hummingboard 8P Edge AI is now available to buy on the SolidRun shop, starting at $590 for the 4GB model; the Basler camera module is available for an additional $170.