The DEBIX Model C Is a Raspberry Pi-Alike with Low-Power TinyML Acceleration From an Ethos-U65
With two Ethernet ports, an Arm Cortex-M33 real-time core, and two Cortex-A55 application-class cores, this SBC packs in the features.
Embedded hardware specialist DEBIX has announced a Raspberry Pi-like single-board computer (SBC), the eponymous DEBIX Model C which packs the NXP i.MX9352 system-on-chip (SoC) — pairing two application-class processors with an Arm Ethos-U65 "microNPU" low-power neural processing unit (NPU) tinyML accelerator.
"[The DEBIX Model C] utilizes [the] NXP i.MX 93 processor," the company writes of its latest board design, "an optimum combination of efficient machine learning acceleration, energy flex architecture, and state-of-the-art security, delivering energy-efficient and cost-effective solutions for intelligent edge computing."
There's no hiding where DEBIX found its inspiration for laying out the board, which was brought to our attention by LinuxGizmos: the DEBIX Model C mimics a Raspberry Pi Model B, right down to the 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header. It's not a direct clone, though, and not only because of the interesting NXP i.MX9352 at its heart: rather than one gigabit Ethernet port and four USB ports, the DEBIX Model C packs two gigabit Ethernet ports — one with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) support — and just two USB 2.0 ports, plus a USB Type-C On-The-Go (OTG) port.
Elsewhere on the board are a USB Type-C power connector, a 3.5mm analog audio jack with microphone input, MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and Camera Serial Interface (CSI) both supporting 1080p60 resolution, plus an LVDS output good for 720p60 — but no HDMI connector, it has to be noted. There's a microSD slot for storage, an on-board radio with single-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi — dual-band Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 an optional upgrade, DEBIX says — and Bluetooth 5.0.
It's the system-on-chip that makes the DEBIX Model C stand out from the crowd, though. NXP's i.MX9352 includes four distinct cores: two Arm Cortex-A55 application-class cores running at up to 1.7GHz, a single Cortex-M33 real-time core running at up to 250MHz, and an Ethos-U65 microNPU — a coprocessor dedicated to low-power on-device machine learning and artificial intelligence workloads. To this, DEBIX has added 1GB of LPDDR4 — with plans to offer a 2GB variant. Everything runs, meanwhile, from a 5V 2A power supply, with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support available using an add-on board.
The company hasn't announced pricing for the board, which it says may have its specifications shifted ahead of a planned release in September; more information is available on the DEBIX website.