AI chips focus on computer vision

Qualcomm has unveiled two new systems-on-chip (SoCs) designed to serve smart visual applications for IoT platforms. While most IoT-based visual processing technologies repurpose processors, the QCS603  and QCS605 are tailor-made with advanced camera processing software, machine learning, and computer vision software development kits (SDKs) for smart cameras. The potential of these densely packed 10-nm FinFET-based chips can range from tracking automated equipment in Industrial IoT (IIoT) to facial recognition in smart city and home automation applications. They are the first SoCs of this type in Qualcomm’s Vision Intelligence Platform.

The SoCs support both 2 x 2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity as well as six satellite navigation options including GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, and SBAS. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth being the most prolific choice for non-cellular short-range communications, this chip can utilize these technologies for many commercial and consumer IoT applications. There is also support for up to 4K video at 60 frames per second (fps), or 5.7K at 30 fps with the chip’s dual 16-megapixel (MP) image sensor processors. Multiple simultaneous streams can also be enabled at lower resolutions. For significant digital signal processing (DSP) off the cloud, the chips carry an 8-core 64-bit CPU with clock speeds up to 2.5 GHz.