Ceva and Edge Impulse Join Forces to Enable Faster, Easier Development of Edge AI Applications

Partnership enables AI developers to train, optimize and deploy embedded ML models on the Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPU IP, pre-silicon, via Edge Impulse Platform

ROCKVILLE, MD., September 24, 2024 – Ceva, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA), the leading licensor of silicon and software IP that enables Smart Edge devices to connect, sense and infer data more reliably and efficiently, and Edge Impulse, the leading platform for building, deploying, and scaling edge machine learning models, today announced a collaboration to enhance the Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPUs with support for Edge Impulse Platform. This integration will enable AI developers to more rapidly develop, train and deploy advanced embedded ML applications for the Ceva NPUs with cycle-accurate performance, before physical hardware is available. This first-of-its-kind collaboration based around an NPU IP ensures that AI developers can accurately benchmark and refine the performance of their edge AI models in Edge Impulse Platform, significantly accelerating the time-to-market for NeuPro-Nano based silicon targeting AIoT devices.

The Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPU IP for Embedded AI is a highly efficient, self-sufficient Edge NPU family designed for embedded ML applications. It delivers the optimal balance of ultra-low power and the best performance in a small area to efficiently execute embedded ML workloads across AIoT product categories, including Hearables, Wearables, Home Audio, Smart Home, Smart Factory, and more. These AIoT-optimized NPUs are ideal for Ceva’s large installed base of wireless connectivity customers and MCU vendors wishing to integrate their own AI/ML models into their product roadmaps to enhance performance, support emerging Edge AI use cases and enter new market segments. Edge Impulse Platform perfectly complements the NeuPro-Nano hardware, providing ‘no code’ AI tools to the customer, which dramatically simplifies the deployment and benchmarking of embedded ML applications.

“Ceva-NeuPro-Nano is an exciting new NPU IP core that will enable a wide range of embedded ML applications to efficiently run in small, low-power and high-performance edge devices,” said Zach Shelby, Co-founder and CEO, Edge Impulse. “Our first-of-its kind NPU IP collaboration with Ceva enables NeuPro-Nano customers to leverage Edge Impulse Platform to unlock the full potential of embedded ML in their AIoT products pre-silicon, facilitating the rapid, scalable deployment of edge AI across industries and end markets with unprecedented performance.”

“We are in the early stages of the Edge AI era, with demand for on-device AI growing across every industry and market segment,” said Chad Lucien, vice president and general manager of the Sensors and Audio Business Unit at Ceva. “To address the acute demand for low-power, small form factor and powerful AIoT devices, our customers require a solution to efficiently and cost effectively incorporate embedded ML applications into their NeuPro-Nano based products. Edge Impulse Platform together with NeuPro-Nano is a winning combination, providing AI developers with a seamless, user-friendly experience to rapidly design, develop and deploy silicon-optimized AI applications with market leading performance.”

With Edge Impulse Platform, optimized AI performance can be achieved for the NeuPro-Nano NPUs with little to no code. Models can be uploaded to or developed using Edge Impulse Platform for faster development cycles and deployment on NeuPro-Nano. Since the NeuPro-Nano self-sufficient architecture uniquely supports AI inference, feature extraction and the DSP workloads commonly used in audio, voice and vision applications, the combination with Edge Impulse Platform ensures developers get accurate cycle count emulation for the full end-to-end AI application.

Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPU IP is available for licensing today in two highly efficient and optimized configurations to address a wide variety of use cases. Edge Impulse Platform will be available for use with Ceva-NeuPro-Nano in the coming months. For more information, visit https://www.ceva-ip.com/product/ceva-neupro-nano/.

About Edge Impulse

Edge Impulse streamlines the creation of AI and machine learning models for edge hardware, allowing devices to make decisions and offer insight where data is gathered. Edge Impulse’s technology empowers developers to bring more AI products to market, and helps enterprise teams rapidly develop production-ready solutions in weeks instead of years. Powerful automations make it easier to build valuable datasets and develop advanced AI for edge devices from MCUs to CPUs to GPUs. Used by health and wearable organizations like Hyfe and Ultrahuman, industrial organizations like Lexmark, HP, and Halma as well as top silicon vendors and over 100,000 developers, Edge Impulse has become the trusted ML platform for enterprises and developers alike. To learn more, visit edgeimpulse.com.

About Ceva, Inc.

At Ceva, we are passionate about bringing new levels of innovation to the smart edge. Our wireless communications, sensing and Edge AI technologies are at the heart of some of today’s most advanced smart edge products. From wireless connectivity IPs (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, UWB and 5G platform IP), to scalable Edge AI NPU IPs and sensor fusion solutions, we have the broadest portfolio of IP to connect, sense and infer data more reliably and efficiently. We deliver differentiated solutions that combine outstanding performance at ultra-low power within a very small silicon footprint. Our goal is simple – to deliver the silicon and software IP to enable a smarter, safer, and more interconnected world. This philosophy is in practice today, with Ceva powering more than 18 billion of the world’s most innovative smart edge products from AI-infused smartwatches, IoT devices and wearables to autonomous vehicles and 5G mobile networks.

Our headquarters are in Rockville, Maryland with a global customer base supported by operations worldwide. Our employees are among the leading experts in their areas of specialty, consistently solving the most complex design challenges, enabling our customers to bring innovative smart edge products to market.

Ceva: Powering the Smart Edge™

Visit us at www.ceva-ip.com .