AAEON and Intel Enable Powerful Vision and AI Inference Workloads for Space-Constrained Edge Deployments

AAEON and Intel Enable Powerful Vision and AI Inference Workloads for Space-Constrained Edge Deployments

UP Bridge the Gap, a brand belonging to a leading manufacturer of AI Edge hardware solutions, AAEON Technology. AAEON’s UP Squared Pro 7000 single-board computer Intel Atom® processors x7000E Series, Intel® Core™ i3 processors, and Intel® Processors N-Series enables OEMs, solution builders, and system integrators to quickly deploy vision and AI capabilities at the edge.

Solution Brief with Intel

“We chose the latest generation of Intel® processors because we know they are prepared to meet the complex and costly IoT and edge challenges that our OEM and solution builder customers face today and are flexible enough to handle their future needs.”

From chatbots that provide contextual responses for human operators to video analytics that bring machine intelligence to situational awareness, AI is having a profound impact on everyday processes. The technology that makes AI possible outside the data center relies on an ever-increasing performance envelope in smaller form factor devices, and the market is pouncing on the opportunity. The global edge AI market size will soar to a valuation of USD 107.5B by 2029 at a compound annual growth rate of 31.7 percent.

Challenge: Enabling the trifecta of performance, connectivity, and flexibility at the edge

Edge deployments for retail, healthcare, industrial automation, and robotics
often face a variety of challenges that inhibit a business’s ability to realize emerging and attractive use cases. These use cases include interactive self-checkout kiosks with voice recognition features, portable clinical devices with onboard AI-assisted imaging, automated in-office scanners with built-in AI for text recognition, or object recognition in robotics and automation. AI workloads typically require devices with more performance and a larger footprint, but many end user environments just don’t have room to spare. OEMs and solution providers need to be able to meet customers’ AI performance demands with room to add in functionality, such as MIPI cameras or audio devices, and package it all into an easy-to-deploy, space-saving edge device.

Solution: Deliver expandable high performance with UP Squared Pro 7000 and Intel® processors

The UP Squared Pro 7000 single-board computer is the latest third-generation offering in the UP Squared Pro series from AAEON and features new levels of expandability, flexibility, and performance in a compact, low-power form factor built for the edge. Powered by Intel Atom® processors x7000E Series, Intel® Core™ i3 processors, and Intel® Processors N-Series, the UP board is ideal for solution builders and OEMs looking to offer more-advanced and demanding compute, graphics, virtualization, and vision and AI capabilities in their solutions. “We chose the latest generation of Intel processors because we know they are prepared to meet the complex and costly IoT and edge challenges our OEM and solution builder customers face today,” says Owen Wei, UP e-commerce manager from AAEON. “We were impressed by the new vision, AI, graphics, and real-time capabilities this processor series brings to really take embedded edge deployments to the next level.”

The UP Squared Pro 7000 also uniquely offers expanded
support for more connectivity and interfaces—including
the MIPI-CSI interface—to give customers the ability to
add more-advanced features or components based on
their needs. To enable a complete solution, the AAEON

UP team can provide a Linux- or Windows-compatible
camera kit that’s already validated with the UP Squared
Pro platform, which customers can use to fast-track
development with the help of AAEON-provided tutorials.

Key use cases for the UP Squared Pro 7000

How it works

The UP Squared Pro 7000 is available as both a board and a compact edge system, giving OEMs and solution builders flexibility to create solutions that fit specific customer needs. To make application development and deployment even easier, the UP solution can also be bundled as an edge computing kit. The kit includes a power supply, power cord, and preinstalled and prevalidated software, such as Ubuntu 22.04, the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit, and Intel® Media SDK. For businesses working in the robotics industry, the UP Squared Pro 7000 supports the Intel® Edge Insights for Autonomous Mobile Robots (Intel® EI for AMR) software package, which includes libraries and middleware to accelerate AMR application development and time to market.

Offer more capabilities at the edge with key Intel processor features and integrated technologies

The UP Squared Pro 7000 board features your choice of
the Intel Atom® processors x7000E Series, Intel® Core™ i3
processors, and Intel® Processors N-Series to support some
of the most demanding graphics, media processing, and
deep learning inference use cases. Built with the same
Efficient-core design and Intel® UHD Graphics as 12th Gen
Intel® Core™ processors, these Intel processors feature up
to eight single-thread Efficient-cores and offer up to 32
graphics execution units (EUs).

Create engaging, rich 4K visual applications without relying on a discrete graphics card

With the UP Squared Pro 7000 board, OEMs and solution
builders can meet the needs of customers looking to create rich visual experiences for digital signage, portable medical imaging, small-footprint point-of-sale systems, or other embedded edge use cases with graphically demanding workloads. The solution supports up to three concurrent 4K60 SDR displays without a discrete graphics card—which is especially useful when working with space-constrained deployments at the edge. Alternatively, if customers need to deploy a larger visual experience, they can leverage Pipelock on the Windows OS to sync two displays for video wall applications.

Offer more capabilities at the edge with key Intel processor features and integrated technologies

Deploy deep learning inference at the edge with accelerated AI

The UP Squared Pro 7000 board allows OEMs and solution builders to deliver deep learning inference to low-power edge devices with help from three integrated Intel® technologies: Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost), Intel® Gaussian and Neural Accelerator (Intel® GNA), and Intel UHD Graphics. Intel DL Boost accelerates inference processing on the CPU, while Intel GNA provides hardware-based acceleration for AI speech and audio applications, offloading these workloads from the CPU. The graphics EUs included with Intel UHD Graphics boost parallel processing for AI workloads, contributing to better performance overall.

The UP Squared Pro 7000 board also helps developers
get their AI solutions to market faster with access to
optimized, pretrained models that are part of the Intel
Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit Open Model Zoo.

Support time-constrained or real-time applications

In areas like industrial automation, robotics, and healthcare, new solutions often require a precise coordination and synchronization both within and across networked devices to execute real-time workloads within defined, predictable time frames. The Intel processors powering the UP Squared Pro 7000 board are enhanced for IoT and feature Intel® Time Coordinated Computing (Intel® TCC)3 and 2.5GbE Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN)‒capable MAC to support real-time applications. Intel TCC and TSN enable OEMs and solution builders to offer new levels of predictability and reliability for critical systems with support for deterministic workloads and networking.

Drive more value from deployments with long-life availability4 and support

AAEON and Intel help OEMs and solution builders drive additional value for their solutions by providing longlife availability and support on select Intel processors. Prolonged access to parts and replacements beyond standard five-year life cycles can help assure end customers that they will get more value out of their investments, with longer deployments in the field and longer intervals between upgrades.

Build and deploy MIPI camera–based applications faster and easier with the UP Squared Pro 7000 board

Designed with emerging machine vision and AI use cases in mind, the UP Squared Pro 7000 includes an integrated MIPI-CSI interface, MIPI driver, validated MIPI camera options, and a tutorial for developers. “We know how timeconsuming and arduous camera-related development can be, especially if the camera isn’t validated, which forces team members to start the entire process from scratch,” says Fredy Hsu, UP product and project manager at AAEON. “We’re excited to offer this new feature, knowing how much time and energy OEMs, solution builders, and end customers will be able to save by not having to research, test, and evaluate options.” By integrating the MIPI interface with the board, AAEON is helping builders avoid the need to add additional drivers, boards, or cables.

Conclusion: Bring next-generation AI, vision, and real-time capabilities to edge environments

OEMs, solution builders, and customers can now deploy deep learning inference, 4K graphics, and real-time applications at the edge faster with the UP Squared Pro 7000 board, based on Intel processors. Powered by Intel, AAEON provides a flexible, expandable, and performant solution that enables OEMs and builder to quickly deliver advanced, exciting applications that meet their customers’ exact needs.

Learn more

UP Squared Pro 7000
Learn more about the flexibility, expandability, and power efficiency AAEON’s UP Squared Pro 7000 brings to embedded edge solutions at up-board.org/upsquared-pro-7000.

Intel Atom® processors x7000E Series, Intel® Core™ i3 processors, and Intel® Processors N-Series
Learn more about Intel processors built for AI, graphics, and real-time applications at the edge at intel.com/atomx7000e-iot.

About UP Bridge the Gap

UP Bridge the Gap is a brand founded by AAEON Technology Europe in 2015. The UP team aims to bring innovation in technology, business models, and integrated solutions. The UP team collaborates with market leaders in different vertical markets to develop integrated solutions and build a large online community to work closely with developers.

About AAEON

Established in 1992, AAEON is one of the leading designers and manufacturers of industrial IoT and AI Edge solutions. With continual innovation as a core value, AAEON provides reliable, high-quality computing platforms including industrial motherboards and systems, rugged tablets, embedded AI Edge systems, uCPE network appliances, and LoRaWAN/WWAN solutions.

Notices and disclaimers
1. “Edge AI Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analytics, By Component (Hardware, Network, Edge Cloud Infrastructure, Software, and Support Services), By Industry (Automotive, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Energy & Utility, Consumer Goods, IT & Telecom, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2022-2029,” Fortune Business Insights, December 2022, fortunebusinessinsights.com/edge-ai-market-107023
2. Performance varies by use, configuration, and other factors. Learn more at intel.com/PerformanceIndex.
3. Available on select SKUs.
4. Intel does not commit or guarantee product availability or software support by way of road map guidance. Intel reserves the right to change road maps or discontinue products, software, and software support services through standard EOL/PDN processes. Contact your Intel account rep for additional information.
Intel is committed to respecting human rights and avoiding complicity in human rights abuses. See Intel Global Human Rights Principles. Intel® products and software are intended only to be used in applications that do not cause or contribute to a violation of an internationally recognized human right.
Performance results are based on testing as of dates shown in configurations and may not reflect all publicly available updates.
No product or component can be absolutely secure.
Your costs and results may vary.
Intel® technologies may require enabled hardware, software, or service activation.
Intel does not control or audit third-party data. You should consult other sources to evaluate accuracy.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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