Tensilica Vision Q6 DSP to boost embedded vision and AI
The fifth-generation Vision Q6 DSP offers 1.5X greater vision and AI performance than its predecessor, the Vision P6 DSP, and 1.25X better power efficiency at the Vision P6 DSP’s peak performance. The Vision Q6 DSP is targeted for embedded vision and on-device AI applications in the smartphone, surveillance camera, automotive, augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR), drone and robotics markets.
A deeper, 13-stage processor pipeline and system architecture designed for use with large local memories enable the Vision Q6 DSP to achieve 1.5GHz peak frequency and 1GHz typical frequency at 16nm, in the same floorplan area as the Vision P6 DSP. As a result, designers using the Vision Q6 DSP can develop high-performance products that meet increasing vision and AI demands and power-efficiency needs.
An enhanced DSP instruction set results in up to 20 percent fewer cycles than the Vision P6 DSP for embedded vision applications/kernels such as Optical Flow, Transpose and warpAffine, and commonly used filters such as Median and Sobel. The new IP doubles system data bandwidth with separate master/slave AXI interfaces for data/instructions and multi-channel DMA to alleviate memory bandwidth challenges in vision and AI applications, also reducing latency and overhead associated with task switching and DMA setup.
The Vision Q6 DSP supports AI applications developed in the Caffe, TensorFlow and TensorFlowLite frameworks through the Tensilica Xtensa Neural Network Compiler (XNNC). The XNNC maps neural networks into executable and highly optimized high-performance code for the Vision Q6 DSP, leveraging a comprehensive set of optimized neural network library functions. The Vision Q6 DSP also supports the Android Neural Network (ANN) API for on-device AI acceleration in Android-powered devices. The software environment also features complete and optimized support for more than 1,500 OpenCV-based vision and OpenVX library functions, enabling fast, high-level migration of existing vision applications.
With its 384 GMAC/sec peak performance, the Vision Q6 DSP is well suited for high-performance systems and applications. It can be paired with the Vision C5 DSP for applications requiring greater than 384 GMAC/sec AI performance.
Cadence – www.cadence.com
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