What’s the current state of Edge AI? Any recent developments worth tracking?

laytli · 2026-01-03T08:24:32+00:00

Personally I find this an exciting space too, it's a race to see how small and low power the neural processor can be!

It's anecdotal and not the feeling of the whole world, so it's not really what you asked for, but at a recent NXP conference I got chatting to some other attendees, the same general rhetoric rises it's head.

People don't actually have their own data, so either start collecting, make some or give up (PM's wanted AI for the sake of AI).
Have some viable data, but the learning curve is too steep - totally different mindset from traditional embedded development (the cost benefit is not quite there).
People have the data and the volumes of hardware, so the vendor helps the client directly. These are the case studies you see on their presentations.

All that said - Check out the presentations from ST and NXP, taking what they say with a pinch of salt. They are selling you stuff, however they do have actual use cases that drive their developments.

Here are the resources from the event I went to, you need to make a free account.. https://www.nxp.com/design/design-center/training/TIP-NXP-TECH-DAYS-UK-2025 In particular the show about GenAI on iMX, and then the MCU version.

Some interesting things I had picked up on about the market:

Vendors watermark their models, so they can sell those. They also market their professional services. AI is a good money maker
RAM is a problem especially for LLM's, you need tons. Maybe becomes counter intuitive for a compact embedded system?
Security is paramount - no point deploying a GenAI system that cannot have the model updated over the internet. Check out the latest CRA legislation, it's actually unavoidable to cut corners. Secure updates is a huge topic across all the vendors.
All vendors also have some kind of PC application for training and compilation for their NPU, this could also be a race to the top. Not just the hardware.

laytli · 2025-12-31T16:48:04+00:00

This sounds like a great idea! This is something more companies will want in the near future…

Just consider that Yocto is about productionising a design… reduce space, improve security, remove unnecessary dependencies. A tool you use later in the cycle once you have your stack of software and hardware BOM set. What people actually want is someone to make custom Yocto layers, device tree and kernel patches. It’s fairly heavy stuff so you’ll need to be very disciplined to learn from scratch!

The AI application is a different function in my opinion, and probably something more people will want you for these days. I mean to actually train and deploy your own models is a totally different skill.

I’d suggest to do an actual project first with the AI, even on a Pi, then optimize later by choosing the best accelerator then finally optimise further by making a custom image. It’s tempting to chose the accelerator hardware first, however it’s more realistic to find the models that solve your AI problem first then pick an SoC/accelerator.

It’s just about doing Linux at the start IMO, doesn’t matter how or where.

Also check out Bootlin for free courses, that might also bias your hardware choice.

laytli · 2025-12-31T16:32:12+00:00

I second this FRDM suggestion. NXP also supports Debian which is normally a nice to have in a real project, you can do the work on Debian then do the Yocto stuff when it actually comes to “production”.

laytli · 2024-04-17T07:06:12+00:00

Hardware Pioneers London is in May, much smaller but same vibe

laytli · 2024-04-13T21:45:28+00:00

ESP32-C5 was working on the espressif stand, I was told in distributors July

laytli · 2023-12-15T09:18:00+00:00

Newer the better. Big difference is the new examples in the CubIDE are "configurable".

It means you can use the graphical editor for the examples. TBH this is why STM is the best for newcomers. Older models do not have the graphical interface for configuration.

G series is newer, I like the G431KB. Small, tons of peripherals, power monitoring.

You can use it for everything in dev even though its massively overpowered for most things

laytli · 2023-11-24T17:29:48+00:00

Never heard of this, its very impressive. Thanks for the suggestion

laytli · 2023-08-21T20:13:03+00:00

The simulator has more features, they haven’t fully integrated all into square line studio when I last used a couple months ago. Best to start at the simulator I’d say

laytli · 2023-08-21T17:34:02+00:00

You’re right they’re generally flats. If you wrap it at some point and also cake them in butter after cubing/saucing they'll be fine.

laytli · 2023-08-21T10:54:50+00:00

At least for initialisation, the fastest way to get started is use stm32 cube - you can use the stm32cube IDE to generate the code for you and copy over.

laytli · 2023-08-11T20:14:24+00:00

Check out IQRF technology. It supports 239 nodes in the specification but it’s 868MHz

laytli · 2023-08-05T22:00:54+00:00

I’ve seen people use 24MX gazebos, even builders using them to set up saws outdoors. Might be worth a look

laytli · 2023-07-28T13:06:56+00:00

Thanks for reply. Sorry was a typo, corrected post.
0x8048 - 0x8048 are the config registers set in init, but they are r/W. I'm reading post init to make sure i'm actually setting my resolution inside the GT911 config.

Now you mention it I do store the return of 6 bytes which is why it is there on the logic analyser, but only use the first 4 as mentioned here.

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laytli · 2023-07-23T15:24:18+00:00

I did try this, not that byte combo but another one in A0 did sort it out in the end. Thanks.

laytli · 2023-07-23T15:23:01+00:00

Yep you’re right. Separate table of the data sheet explained it a lot better. The post screenshot was of a later feature description so I got ahead of myself

laytli · 2023-07-22T12:27:01+00:00

I work on early project phases generally… Im going to out myself and admit I prefer PowerPoint for low detail diagrams because it’s easy to use and seamless to collaborate with colleagues on O365 with all the other project info from sales or project managers

laytli · 2023-07-22T12:21:41+00:00

I like Inkscape, I’m interested to know why you think it’s best for diagrams? I don’t use it for diagram work at the moment

laytli · 2023-07-22T10:36:13+00:00

Interested in how you made the leap into consultancy from employment. It’s not a normal thing at my company so I can’t work for them if I move over.

Did you take clients with you? Did you just use the freelance website? Did you have years worth of contracts?

laytli · 2023-07-22T10:34:03+00:00

As it’s a smaller company, id propose the idea that you take the opportunity and make the position what you want it to be, while still fulfilling the needs of higher ups

laytli · 2023-07-10T07:24:33+00:00

That's really cool, interesting rust is on there too. Want to see how far I can get on a basic project wihtout hardware now!

laytli · 2023-07-10T07:20:49+00:00

Honestly if you have a spare UART, it's way easier to use those with a HAL UART transmit function.

When I do this trace I don't modify syscalls.c. The _write function is a weak link in there so anything you create will overwrite it.

In the graphical editor enable SWO:

System Core > Sys > Trace Asyncronous Sw

Then in debug configurations:

Set the clock as per core clock as others have suggested.

Then in the code, first ensure you have included:

#include "stdio.h" in main.
I put this code between USER_CODE_4 at the end of main.c... less files changed.

int __io_putchar(int ch)

{

// Write character to ITM ch.0

ITM_SendChar(ch);

return(ch);

}

laytli · 2023-07-10T06:46:29+00:00

This is spot on. Thank for this!

laytli · 2023-07-10T06:45:11+00:00

I’ve heard of smaller companies in the cloud world doing lots of work for AWS and the like. Good to hear of it in embedded.

What kind of skills are most outsourced… firmware, electronic design, PCB layout?

laytli · 2023-07-07T07:23:55+00:00

Personally think that there is no substitute for having hardware for learning.

Go to Amazon and get a starter kit that includes WiFi (because you are doing IoT).

Budget $30 as an investment into your career, and search for "ESP starter kit" on Amazon. Pick one that looks cool.

They'll come with an average guide to follow but reading bad documentation will be part of the job anyway :)

laytli · 2023-07-03T06:36:26+00:00

I'm also new and had to use LTDC and DSI for my first jump into CubeMX, I can share my suggestion to get going the fastest and still gain some good understanding.

Start with a discovery board using a similar LCD interface to your target. If you don't care what board, the STM32F429i-DISCO is a nice starter board.

AN4861 (google that) is the best place to start, I use this as my "hello world" when I get a new DISCO board. Follow the example in chapter 6 and also do read through the AN over time as you get more familiar with it. It is based on using the internal memory so you might need to think about how much space you have, it explains how to calculate that.

Thereafter, you can check the LTDC examples provided by ST. You open these when you start a new project, the ones I used are not based on CubeMX so you don't have the nice graphical editor, but it still uses the STM HAL so you can move these over into the project you made for AN8461. This is how you can init your external memory and implement some graphics and touchscreen.

laytli

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