Arm works to slash time-to-build for IoT with virtual hardware, new ecosystem initiative

New Virtual Hardware Targets will reduce product design cycles by up to two years

Built on the proven foundations of Arm Corstone, a validated and integrated subsystem that has accelerated time to market for more than 150 designs from Arm silicon partners, Arm Total Solutions for IoT introduces Arm Virtual Hardware Targets for software developers, OEMs and service providers. This new cloud-based offering delivers a virtual model of the Corstone subsystem to enable software development without the need for physical silicon. Arm Virtual Hardware brings modern agile software development methodologies like continuous integration / continuous deployment (CI/CD), DevOps and MLOps to IoT and embedded platforms, without having to invest in complex hardware farms.

With accurate models of Arm-based SoCs providing mechanisms for simulating memory, peripherals and more, development and testing of software is now possible before silicon availability. This ultimately reduces a typical product design cycle from an average of five years to as little as three years. It allows Arm silicon partners to gain customer feedback for chips before tape out, while enabling the entire IoT value chain to easily develop and test code on the latest IP well ahead of silicon availability.

Arm Virtual Hardware is available on AWS Marketplace and Arm partners are already using it to innovate faster and accelerate their time to market.

Designing with use-cases in mind to simplify development

Arm Total Solutions for IoT provides a complete solution designed for specific use-cases, leaving developers to focus on what really matters – innovation and differentiation across diverse applications and devices. It has everything needed to simplify the design process and streamline product development, including hardware IP, software, machine learning (ML) models, advanced tools such as the new Virtual Hardware Targets, application specific reference code and support from the world’s largest IoT ecosystem.

The first configuration of an Arm Total Solution for IoT is available now and addresses general-purpose compute and ML workload use-cases, including an ML-based keyword recognition example. Available today are Virtual Hardware Targets for multiple configurations of the Arm Corstone-300 subsystem from Arm SoC partners, incorporating the Arm Cortex^®-M55 processor and Arm Ethos-U55 microNPU.

Arm is fully committed to this comprehensive solutions approach, with a robust roadmap of future solutions which will cover applications such as voice recognition and object recognition.

Standardization is critical for scale

To allow industry players to leverage the software and services they invest in across the widest possible range of platforms, Arm is also introducing Project Centauri. Project Centauri aims to achieve for the extensive Arm Cortex-M software ecosystem what Project Cassini does for the Cortex-A ecosystem, by delivering a set of device and platform standards, as well as reference implementations for device boot, security and cloud integration.

The Project Centauri APIs include support for PSA Certified and Open-CMSIS-CDI, a standard cloud-to-device specification that minimizes the effort required to enable different cloud solutions and real-time operating systems. This will reduce engineering costs, accelerate time to market, enable IoT deployments at scale and improve security across the Cortex-M ecosystem.

Leading the ecosystem into a new era for IoT

To date, Arm partners have shipped more than 70bn Arm Cortex-M based devices and show no sign of slowing, as chips for IoT are expected to have an average Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nearly 15 percent through 2026, according to Mordor Intelligence. To address this growth opportunity, Arm is focused on ensuring its ecosystem is at the forefront of accelerating IoT innovation by making Arm IP increasingly accessible to innovative companies of all sizes through Arm Total Solutions for IoT and programs like Arm Flexible Access.

This represents the beginning of a new era for IoT – one of true software and hardware system-level co-design. Arm is uniquely positioned to unite software and hardware developers to create purpose-built compute and unleash the economic benefit of the IoT. From the smartphone to the data center – and now IoT – designing with systems in mind is the key to accelerating innovation and getting the best out of the specialized processing capabilities that the Arm ecosystem is delivering, wherever computing happens.

Article Topics

ARM  |  chip  |  ecosystem  |  edge hardware  |  IoT  |  Nvidia  |  product design  |  R&D  |  software development