NXP is making a pretty big announcement at CES today in Las Vegas, it is unveiling the i.MX M8 family of applications processors, which boast robust media capabilities on a single chip. This is going to help deliver a solid foundation for better Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices in the future. NXP has worked with the big names in the IoT industry, including Google and Amazon, to make the i.MX 8M processors work well with their products. Martyn Humphries, vice president of consumer and industrial i.MX applications processors at NXP stated that “interacting with machines will be as natural as using your human senses.”
The purpose behind NXP developing the i.MX 8M lineup of applications processors, was to satisfy a requirement by designers who wanted one platform that would combine A/V and machine learning together, and create connected products that can be controlled via voice command. These new processors are able to provide the process technology and edge computing needed to reduce the time between giving a command and getting a response from a device. i.MX 8M is leading the way for residential IoT and device control, with smart TV’s, television subscription services, sound bars and so much more. It’s also great for managing other smart home products like smart lights, thermostats and more.
NXP is also touting that the i.MX 8M enables next-generation capabilities, with features that include 4K Ultra HD resolution, HDR, and pro-audio fidelity, up to four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A53 cores, flexible memory options, high-speed interfaces for flexible connectivity, Advanced Human Machine Interface (HMI) featuring dual displays, vision processing unit and an enriched user experience. The NXP i.MX 8M applications processors are available right now, so that manufacturers are able to start using them in products. Products with the i.MX 8M inside will likely not hit store shelves until at least the second quarter of this year. NXP is showing off the i.MX applications processor family at its booth at CES this week, and it includes demos of Android Things drawing robots, as well as one with Alexa showing what it is capable of doing with Amazon’s personal assistant.
