Mid-class AI processor extended for smart factories and intelligent cities of tomorrow

Renesas Electronics Corporation has expanded its RZ/V Series of MPUs with a new device that targets the high-volume vision AI market. Similar to its high-end device, the RZ/V2H, the new RZ/V2N MPU comes with the company's proprietary AI accelerator, DRP-AI3, boasting 10 TOPS/W power efficiency and an AI inference performance of up to 15 TOPS through its advanced pruning technology. With the latest addition of the RZ/V2N, the RZ/V series has now expanded to cover a full range of markets, from the low-end RZ/V2L (0.5 TOPS) to the high-end RZ/V2H (up to 80 TOPS).

The new MPU is particularly smaller than the RZ/V2H, with its package area measuring only 15mm square, decreasing the area needed for mounting by 38%. Inheriting the advanced features of the series, the RZ/V2N combines high AI performance with low power consumption. These optimised features suppress heat generation, eradicating the necessity for extra cooling fans and decreasing the size and cost of embedded systems. Developers can easily implement vision AI in various applications, from AI cameras for traffic and congestion analysis in commercial facilities to industrial cameras for visual inspection on production lines and driver monitoring systems for behaviour analysis.

Similar to the RZ/V2H, the new RZ/V2N is equipped with four best-in-class Arm Cortex-A55 CPU cores and a single Cortex-M33 core, coupled with a high-quality image signal processor (ISP), Arm Mali-C55. The RZ/V2N also has two channels of MIPI camera interfaces, which permit two cameras to be connected to capture double-angle images. The two-camera system greatly improves spatial recognition performance compared to a single camera system and enables more precise human motion line analysis and fall detection. Furthermore, the dual-camera system captures images from different locations, allowing a single chip to count cars in a parking lot and recognise license plates efficiently.

"Since launching the RZ/V2H last year to target next-generation robotics requiring vision AI and real-time control, we have received tremendous interest in using the Renesas DRP-AI accelerator," said Daryl Khoo, VP of Embedded Processing at Renesas. "With the addition of the RZ/V2N, sharing the same lineage as the RZ/V2H, we are extending our reach to address mid-range applications, particularly endpoint vision AI that does not need to be realised with power hungry designs. I am excited that our customers will be able to select the best AI MPU from Renesas that meets their system and budget requirements."

"Vision AI applications across markets including smart city, enterprise and industrial are broad and varied, but all demand sustained performance and efficient processing," said Paul Williamson, senior vice president and general manager, IoT Line of Business at Arm. "Renesas' new RZ/V2N MPU leverages the leading-edge capabilities of the Arm compute platform to deliver against the performance and efficiency needs of next-generation vision AI use cases."

The RZ/V2N will be available with the company's evaluation board kit and a software development environment, along with various AI applications covering more than 50 use cases provided in the AI applications and AI SDK (GitHub). The SDK assists users without in-depth AI knowledge in quickly evaluating and developing AI applications, shortening the time to market. Additionally, partner companies will provide a SOM board, SBC, camera modules, and other products incorporating the Renesas RZ/V2N. This reduces hardware design work, allowing developers to focus on AI application development and bring their products to market rapidly.