mediatekThe global fabless semiconductor company MediaTek just joined the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) to drive AI innovation and support the evolution of its edge AI platform.

The company is currently enabling around 1.5 billion connected devices a year and is a market leader in developing innovative systems-on-chip (SoC) for mobile device, home entertainment, connectivity and IoT products.

ONNX was created and launched by Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft to establish an interoperability standard for transferring deep learning models between frameworks, which resulted is an open ecosystem that allows AI developers to mix and match the tools and frameworks they need during any stage of a project.

Existing involvement in the Android Neural Network (ANN), combined with its new support of and participation in ONNX, is part of MediaTek's strategic imperative to continue integrating AI across its technology portfolio.

MediaTek launch recently its new NeuroPilot AI platform, which encompasses both hardware and software, including an SDK and an AI processing unit to support the development of AI enabled mobile and smart home devices as well as autos. Furthermore, the company unveiled the MediaTek Helio P60 system-on-chip (SoC), the first SoC platform featuring a multi-core AI processing unit (mobile APU). Its Arm Cortex A73 and A53 processor mix delivers up to a 70% CPU performance boost over the Helio P23 and Helio P30, besides delivering incredible energy efficiency to extend device battery life. MediaTek Helio P60 brings MediaTek's NeuroPilot AI technology to the heart of your smartphone. Its AI-compute architecture works seamlessly across CPU, GPU and Mobile APU within the SoC to maximize performance and energy efficiency.

The MediaTek's NeuroPilot SDK in P60 is compatible with Google Android Neural Networks API (Android NNAPI), and also supports common AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, TF Lite, Caffe, and Caffe2. That makes it easy for developers to quickly bring-to-market innovative AI applications. Helio P60 also packs a 4G LTE WorldMode modem, dual 4G VoLTE and TAS 2.0 smart antenna technology to provide consumers with seamless global connectivity and to enable device makers to bring to market smarter, more capable and more reliable mid-range smartphones.

Jerry Yu, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Home Entertainment Business Group, MediaTek said: "A key to developing AI applications and capabilities lies within an open ecosystem where shared research and interoperability are the true enablers of innovation. In an effort to evolve our own AI platform and to ensure that interoperability and choice is preserved when developing with MediaTek NeuroPilot, it made sense to widen our support for open AI frameworks by joining the Open Neural Network Exchange."

The MediaTek NeuroPilot AI platform already supports mainstream AI frameworks, as it operates in concert with existing neural processing SDKs including Google TensorFlow, Caffe, Amazon MXNet, Sony NNabla, and more. At the OS level, MediaTek offers support for both Android and Linux.

As a partner of the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX), MediaTek is working on bringing ONNX support to the chipset in Q2 2018 to provide developers with even more flexibility for designing AI-powered applications.

By MediaBUZZ