SPOT Helps Knock Down Edge AI Noise
What you’ll learn:
- What is subthreshold optimized technology (SPOT)?
- How Apollo 510 makes the batteries in augmented-reality glasses last longer.
Ambiq has been pushing its subthreshold optimized technology (SPOT), which can significantly reduce the amount of power consumed in microcontrollers. At the same time, the company is upping the performance of its MCUs, which includes the Arm Cortex-M55-based Apollo 510 featuring Helium ARMv8.1-M machine-learning (ML) support. I talked with Chad Solomon. Director of Project Marketing and Business Development, about Ambiq’s latest applications and development kits for the Apollo 510 family (Fig. 1).
SPOT operates the transistor below the normal threshold voltage, so it requires minimal amounts of current. Operating in this mode reduces power requirements but requires designs that address noise and leakage currents that now have a greater impact on switching. Likewise, the design needs to maintain high switching frequencies.
Another difference compared to most microcontrollers is the use of 4-MB MRAM for non-volatile storage. MRAM tends to be faster and more power efficient than flash memory, especially as transistors shrink in size.
Saving Power for Augmented-Reality Glasses
Even Realities’ Even G2 smart glasses use the Apollo 510 with Bluetooth support (Fig. 2). These augmented-reality (AR) glasses don’t contain a camera; instead, they have a green display generated by a unique Holistic Adaptive Optics (HAO) 2.0 system using a micro-LED projector. It results in a bright dual display but very low power requirements. Together, the optics and microcontroller can run for two days, twice the previous generation.
The glasses incorporate multiple microphones, and the Apollo 510 supports ML models to process the inputs. It also uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with a local database to analyze discussions in real-time.
Developing with the Apollo 510
The Apollo510 EVB (Fig. 3) is a modular development platform created by Ambiq. As with most dev kits, the board has built-in debugging with a USB Type-C connector for power and control.
About the Author
William G. WongWilliam G. Wong
Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.
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