Avnet's MaaXBoard OSM93 Offers a Raspberry Pi-Like System for Energy-Efficient Edge AI Work

Avnet has announced the launch of the MaaXBoard OSM93, a Raspberry Pi-style semi-single-board computer that aims to deliver a platform for energy efficient edge artificial intelligence (edge AI) workloads — using the NXP i.MX 93 system-on-chip at its heart.

"“The MaaXBoard OSM93 Development Kit is a great way for embedded designers to quickly evaluate and prototype both the i.MX 93 applications processor from NXP and the Avnet Embedded OSM-SF-IMX93 OSM,” Avnet's Jim Beneke says of the board. "Targeting high-volume applications, the OSM 1.1 standard module is ideal for low-cost automated assembly, while lower volume applications can make use of the production ready SBC form-factor the MaaXBoard offers."

That OSM module is precisely why, despite sharing a footprint with the popular Raspberry Pi range, the MaaXBoard OSM93 is not a true single-board computer — a fact that plays to the benefit of anyone looking to go from prototype to production: the bulk of the hardware is located in the OSM-standard solder-down module atop the Raspberry Pi-like carrier board, meaning that it's possible to design your own carrier for the same module post-prototyping.

The NXP i.MX 93 at the board's heart includes two Arm Cortex-A55 application-class processors running at up to 1.7GHz, a single Cortex-M33 real-time core running at up to 250MHz, and an Ethos-U65 neural processing unit running at 1GHz and delivering a claimed 0.5 tera-operations per second (TOPS) of compute for edge AI and machine learning workloads. It's this which delivers Avnet's claim of a platform ideal for energy-efficient AI work, while an EdgeLock secure enclave system provides security for Internet of Things (IoT) efforts too.

Elsewhere on the board is 2GB of LPDDR4 memory, 640kB of on-chip RAM (OCRAM), 16GB of eMMC 5.1 storage, and 16MB of QSPI NOR flash. There are two USB 2.0 Type-A host ports, a USB 2.0 Type-C port, four-lane MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and two-lane Camera Serial Interface (CSI) connectors, two gigabit Ethernet ports, and an M.2 E-key connector for optional wireless modules.

There's a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-style general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header, a JTAG debugging header, a four-pin analog input header, six-pin CAN-FD header, and a SAI digital audio header that works alongside two on-board PDM microphone sensors.

Avnet has confirmed it will be showing off the MaaXBoard OSM93 at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany, April 9-11 at Booth 1-510; the board and module will both become generally available in the second quarter, with pricing yet to be confirmed. More information is available on the Avnet website.