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STMicroelectronics to boost AI at the edge with new NPU-accelerated STM32 microcontrollers

2025-01-08 | Return

* New machine-learning capabilities make it possible to run computer vision, audio processing, sound analysis and more consumer and industrial applications at the edge
* STM32N6 MCU series is the most powerful in STM32 family, and first to feature proprietary Neural-ART Accelerator™ NPU, architected for embedded inference
* Combination of software and tools ecosystem continues to lower the barrier to entry for developers to take advantage of AI-accelerated performance for real-time operating systems

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, is making embedded artificial intelligence (AI) truly here-to-help with a new microcontroller series integrating, for the first time, accelerated machine-learning (ML) capabilities. This enables cost-sensitive, power-conscious consumer and industrial products to provide high-performance features leveraging computer vision, audio processing, sound analysis and other algorithms, until now beyond the capabilities of small embedded systems.

The STM32N6 microcontroller (MCU) series is ST’s most powerful to date, and the first to embed ST’s proprietary neural processing unit (NPU), the Neural-ART Accelerator, delivering 600 times more machine-learning performance than a high-end STM32 MCU today. The STM32N6 has been available to selected customers since October 2023 and is now ready to be offered in high volumes.

“We are on the verge of a significant transformation at the tiny edge. This transformation involves the increasing augmentation or replacement of our customers’ workloads by AI models. Currently, these models are used for tasks such as segmentation, classification, and recognition. In the future, they will be applied to new applications yet to be developed,” said Remi El-Ouazzane, President, Microcontrollers, Digital ICs and RF Products Group (MDRF) at STMicroelectronics. “The STM32N6 is the first STM32 product to feature our Neural-ART Accelerator NPU. It will utilize a new release of our unique AI software ecosystem package. This marks the beginning of a long journey of AI hardware-accelerated STM32, which will enable innovations in applications and products in ways not possible with any other embedded processing solution.”

“It is a common misconception that AI is purely a big datacenter, power hungry application,” says Tom Hackenberg, Principal Analyst, Memory and Computing Group at Yole Group. “This is no longer true. Today’s IoT edge applications are hungry for the kind of analytics that AI can provide. The STM32N6 is a great example of the new trend melding energy-efficient Microcontroller workloads with the power of AI analytics to provide computer vision and mass sensor driven performance capable of great savings in the total cost of ownership in modern equipment.”

Technical features and support for AI development:

Up to 600x machine-learning performance vs typical high-end STM32 MCU: ST’s Neural-ART Accelerator includes nearly 300 configurable multiply-accumulate units achieving up to 600 giga operations per second (GOPS).

The most powerful STM32 today: The STM32N6 has an 800 MHz Arm Cortex-M55 core, delivering an unprecedented 3,360 CoreMark score. The MCUs are also available in a version without the Neural-ART accelerator, for applications requiring all the performance, interfaces and functionality of the STM32N6, without integrating advanced AI algorithms.®®

4.2 MB of RAM, the largest amount ever found on an STM32: providing the memory to support the data-intensive AI and multimedia workloads. Two 64-bit AXI interfaces provide a high level of bandwidth to sustain the highest computation rate and unlock the full power of the Neural-ART Accelerator.

ST advanced Image Signal Processor (ISP), for the first time on an MCU: the STM32N6 incorporates an ISP that provides direct signal processing, enabling the use of simple and affordable image sensors. This ISP can be configured using ST’s free ISP IQTune software (STM32-ISP-IQTune), a cutting-edge tool that permits customizing image signal processing parameters such as exposure time, contrast or color balance.

Supported by ST’s Edge AI Suite: offering comprehensive software tools for the development of edge machine-learning applications, including the possibility to bring your own model in various formats such as TensorFlow Lite, Keras and ONNX.

The new microcontroller now supports a growing model zoo of AI models, offering enhanced performance and versatility for various applications. Users can explore the expanding collection of AI models to elevate their projects, achieve better results and shorten their time to market.

More technical information is available at www.st.com/STM32N6

Source：https://www.st.com/