NXP Semiconductors has introduced the i.MX RT700 crossover MCU family designed for AI-enabled edge devices such as wearables, consumer medical devices, smart home products, and HMI platforms. The i.MX RT700 integrates up to five cores, including a primary Arm Cortex-M33 running at 325 MHz and a Cadence Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP for advanced audio processing.
A key feature of the i.MX RT700 is the inclusion of NXP’s eIQ Neutron Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which accelerates AI workloads by up to 172x while reducing energy per inference by up to 119x compared to running on the Cortex-M33 alone. The MCU family offers up to 7.5MB of ultra-low power SRAM with zero wait-state access.
The i.MX RT700 incorporates power-saving innovations, resulting in a 30-70% reduction in power consumption compared to previous generations. These include adaptive deep sleep techniques, optimized clock architectures with low-power cache schemes, and advanced wake/sleep cycles.
For enhanced system performance, the MCU integrates a high-efficiency DC-DC converter, a basic memory management unit, and supports improved analog peripherals. It is NXP’s first crossover MCU to support the eUSB standard, enabling USB 2.0 interfaces to operate at I/O voltages of 1 V or 1.2 V instead of 3.3 V.
Security features include an EdgeLock Secure Enclave (Core Profile) that provides secure boot with battery-saving mode, secure update, seamless memory encryption, and secure data access. The MCU also incorporates a physically unclonable function (PuF) for device authentication.
The i.MX RT700 family is currently sampling for qualified early-access customers. Engineers interested in learning more can visit nxp.com/RT700 for additional technical specifications and availability information.
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