Obviously we know about the edge box but this is a decent summary article written on a Chinese site.
BrainChip與VVDN Technologies合作，推出了Akida Edge AI Box，本篇文章...
makerpro.cc
Login|Registe
Not just an evaluation kit? BrainChip launches Akida Edge AI Box Gateway
Author: Lu Xiangyang
Figure 1 Akida Edge AI Box (left) and artistic AKD1000 chip (right) (Image source: brainchip)
BrainChip is an Australian technology company. The company's main business is to design and sell AI acceleration circuits. The target customers are chip manufacturers. It is expected that chip manufacturers will adopt the AI hardware acceleration circuit design developed by BrainChip and pay technology licensing fees and subsequent chip mass production. The business model is similar to the well-known Arm.
In order to accelerate the chip manufacturer's evaluation and adoption of the company's acceleration circuit design, BrainChip actually launched Akida1000 Ref SoC (AKD1000 for short), which is a reference system-on-chip. The main body in the chip is BrainChip's AI acceleration circuit, which is called Akida.
The so-called "reference" means that this is not the main business of BrainChip, but just a technology demonstration to facilitate potential buyers to evaluate the company's technology. There is no intention to mass-produce and sell the chip. ( BrainChip officially emphasized that the chip uses TSMC’s 28nm process
Figure 2 Main functions inside the AKD1000 chip (Image source: brainchip)
However, BrainChip seems to feel that it has not done enough. It should give more terminal AI application developers the opportunity to come into contact with BrainChip's technology, experience its advantages and value, and then help promote its technology licensing business. Therefore, BrainChip Corporation, in collaboration with VVDN Technologies, a software and hardware design and manufacturing service provider, launched the Akida Edge AI Box.
Akida Edge AI Box
The Akida Edge AI Box is a complete computer with a circuit board and an organic shell. It is equipped with 2 AKD1000s mentioned above. However, after all, the AKD1000 focuses on AI acceleration, and the internal control processing unit is weak, so the overall system still needs a master control chip. For this VVDN uses an i.MX 8M Plus processor chip from NXP. In order to make AI computing as fast as possible, AKD1000 has a PCI Express interface, which is used to communicate with i. MX 8M Plus processor chip.
It is worth noting that BrainChip actually already has a second-generation Akida acceleration circuit, but it has not yet been made into Ref SoC, so it is not used in the Akida Edge AI Box. Second-generation acceleration circuits have some new features, such as event-based temporal neural networks (Temporal Event-based Neural Nets, TRNNs), or visual transformation (Vision Transformer, ViT).
In addition to reference chips, BrainChip also provides other technical supporting facilities, such as launching a software development environment called MetaTF, which can convert ready-made TensorFlow models, build and train new models, convert CNNs into SNNs, etc. It also provides converted software execution environment, called Akida Runtime.
In order to promote Akida Edge AI Box, BrainChip has once again entered the software field like MetaTF. It promises to launch an operating system based on the Linux 6.1 core for Akida Edge AI Box to use. It also provides multiple Edge AI demonstration applications to potential users. Engineers who want to develop Edge AI can evaluate and use BrainChip's circuit technology faster.
Figure 3 MetaTF development tool, schematic diagram of environmental functions (Image source: BrainChip)
As for VVDN, it also pays attention to the system design of Akida Edge AI Box. For example, the machine uses passive heat dissipation entirely from heat sinks, which saves power, stability, cost, and silence compared to active electric fans.
In addition, Akida Edge AI Box has a USB 3.0 Type-A interface and a Micro-USB interface, which can be used to update firmware or debug; then it has an HDMI video output, 4GB LPDDR memory, and 32GB eMMC storage space, plus a Micro-SDXC specification card slot, which can access memory cards with a maximum capacity of 1TB; then there are two sets of Wi-Fi wireless networks、 For two sets of GbE cable networks, VVDN stated that GbE is mainly used to connect cameras, but basic sales do not include cameras.
In terms of power supply, the Akida Edge AI Box uses a 12V DC power supply. Even if the official does not come with a power supply or the power supply fails, it is easy to find an alternative transformer.
Akida Edge AI Box Hardware Selection
Finally, there are two points to explain. First, the Akida Edge AI Box was announced as early as December 2023, and pre-orders were only open in February. It is initially speculated that the official release will not be until July 2024. The specific shipment time will be announced in April. The current price is $799.
The second is that Akida Edge AI Box can only be regarded as one member hardware of Akida Enablement Platforms in the eyes of BrainChip. Other member hardware is Akida PCIe Board, Akida Development Kit Shuttle PC, and Akida Development Kit Raspberry Pi.
To put it more simply, software developers who want to evaluate BrainChip technology have four hardware options. The Akida Edge AI Box in open pre-order is one of the four. In fact, the Akida Edge AI Box is similar to the Akida Development Kit Raspberry Pi. The difference is that the Akida Development Kit Raspberry Pi is equipped with an Akida PCIe Board with an acceleration chip, while the Akida Edge AI Box is equipped with two on the system circuit board， It has higher acceleration, and the entire body is relatively compact and petite.
In addition, an Akida PCIe Board alone costs US$499, and both the Akida Development Kit Shuttle PC and Akida Development Kit Raspberry Pi are currently sold out (late February). In this way, the US$799 Akida Edge AI Box is quite attractive.
Figure 4 The PCIe Board with one AKD1000 chip costs $499, and the Akida Edge AI Box with two chips costs $799 (Image source: brainchip)
Summary
The author believes that the most suitable role of the Akida Edge AI Box is the IoT gateway. In addition to transmitting, converting, and temporarily storing the data uploaded by the sensor, it also conducts immediate AI inference and judgment on the sensed data, that is, it exerts the power of Edge AI, but I believe that in addition There are many more wonderful possibilities. Let’s see how creative makers can play it.
(Editor: Xie Jiaxun.)
Lu Xiangyang
After graduating from the Department of Electronics, he continued this indissoluble bond with "electronic technology" as a media person. He has successively served as an author of electronic technology books, electronic media reporters, analysts, etc., and continues to write. Recently, I have invested in research and tutorial introduction of open hardware such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
