Kneron KL720 AI SoC

Kneron KL720 AI SoC (System on a Chip) offers an ideal balance of performance, power saving, and cost for hardware makers who are looking to benefit from on-device edge Artificial Intelligence (AI). Powered by Kneron’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that accelerates neural network models, the KL720 SoC makes possible endless AI applications for smart devices.

The NPU core is of the KL720 is designed to accelerate major computing layers inside the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to off-load the heavy computing from the traditional CPU or GPU structure.

Features

  • NPU
    • 696MHz maximum frequency 
    • GOPS, 1024MAC/cycle peak throughput of 8-bit mode: 
  • CPU
    • Arm® Cortex®-M4 @ 400MHz for system control
  • DSP
    • Tensilica DSP @ 500Mhz for AI assistance
  • Memory
    • 128MB SIP SDRAM, 32-bit LPDDR2-2133
    • Up to 128MB SPI NOR or NAND Flash
  • OS Support
    • CMSIS RTX 
  • Power
    • 1.725W average power consumption @ Yolov3_608 
    • 0.9V core voltage
    • 1.8V or 3.3V I/O voltage, grouped by I/O banks
  • Video in interface
    • 2-land MIPI-CSI-2 RX 
    • DVP
  • Video out interface
    • DVP
    • LCM
  • Audio Interface
    • I2S
  • Peripheral Interface
    • I2C
    • SPI
    • UART
    • USB 2.0 OTG 
    • PWM
    • GPIO
    • SDIO

Applications

  • Ideal for high-end IP cams, smart TVs, AI glasses and headsets, and AIoT gateways
  • Power to process 4K images, full HD videos, and 3D sensing for fool-proof facial recognition and to enable innovative gesture control for gaming, shopping kiosks, and more
  • Power to drive Natural Language Processing (NLP) for translators and AI assistants

Block Diagram

Kneron KL720 AI SoC
Published: 2021-02-10 | Updated: 2022-06-08