With the wave of transformation and upgrading of the global manufacturing industry, many traditional enterprises are also embracing IoT technology to realize digital industry and improve production efficiency. The new IIoT technology is considered to be the key to the transformation of enterprises to the industrial Internet of Things. To realize the real industrial Internet of Things, it is necessary to integrate intelligent sensors and powerful analysis systems into the workflow, master real-time relevant data, and control the quality and cost of industrial applications.
Recently, Xilinx held a media meeting for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) seminar in Shenzhen. The network security and more intelligent industrial Internet of Things technology exhibited by Xilinx attracted much attention. At this industrial Internet of Things seminar, Mr. Chetan Khona, Marketing Director of Xilinx’s Industry, Vision, Medical and Science (ISM) department, shared in-depth information about ISM with Chinese media for the first time, and explained in detail Xilinx’s latest industrial Internet of Things solutions in the fields of industry, vision, medical and science, and how to accelerate the early realization of intelligent manufacturing by traditional manufacturing enterprises.
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
Chetan Khona, Marketing Director of Xilinx ISM
Mr. Chetan Khona said to OFweek Electronic Engineering Network and other media that Celine is a very innovative enterprise, not only the inventor of FPGA, but also the world’s first fabless semiconductor enterprise, with more than 60 industry firsts. Its SoC and SDx technology are driving the development of industry and medical industry. Although Celine has always been famous for FPGA, it is Zynq SoC that really drives the company’s business in the industrial field. For industrial and medical customers, product size and price are very important, and the longevity of the life cycle is more important. In this regard, Selingworth has won the recognition of global customers. The products have excellent performance in quality and reliability, and can provide products with a minimum life cycle of 15 years, and some can even reach 20 years or more. Chertan said that the SoC product series of Cyrus is the product series that really drives Cyrus to provide customers with higher value in its ISM field.
Xilinx Industrial Strategy
In FY 2019, the revenue of Sirius reached more than US $3 billion, which was the first time in its history to break through the US $3 billion mark from the long-term US $2 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 24%; More than 40% of them come from Asia, including China and other Asian countries.
The ISM department where Mr. Chetan Khona works, including industry, vision, medical treatment, science, aerospace and military industry, occupies a very important position in the business of Celine, ranking the fourth in revenue and the first in the number of customers, which is very extensive.
Xilinx’s mission is to “build a flexible and intelligent world”, while the ISM department is to build a flexible and intelligent factory, hospital and city. Xilinx has many applications in intelligent factory and vision, such as robot, driver and motor control in intelligent factory, power grid and 3D printing application in vision, etc. Xilinx’s application in intelligent hospitals, such as providing medical robot solutions for the world’s largest medical customers, is based on Xilinx’s Zynq SoC.
Through the mature and flexible SoC platform, plus its cutting-edge AI platform products, Celine hopes to accelerate the transformation and upgrading process of traditional industrial and medical fields and make engineering and hospitals more intelligent.
Application trend of industrial and medical Internet of Things
Both in the industrial and medical fields, the data show an explosive growth trend. With the advent of the Internet of Things era, more and more devices are connected to the network. How to use these data has become a big problem.
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
Xilinx’s strategic core is to help customers use data efficiently and effectively. Grasp the various data dividends that data can bring to us and enable enterprises to have the ability of sustainable development.
At the industrial level, data can be used for predictive maintenance to minimize plant downtime and help customers improve their profits and profits; We can also do asset analysis to better understand customers’ purchasing habits and sell such data to create new revenue streams; And connectivity. Connectivity is the basis of industrial Internet. In addition to the automobile industry, assets are very valuable for factories and hospitals. It is vital for customers to extend their life cycle. Customers can not only update software, but also update hardware through Xilinx solution, which has a positive impact on the asset life cycle and enterprise life.
For the medical Internet of Things, Xilinx can better improve the work efficiency of hospitals and clinics, improve the service to patients and improve people’s quality of life through the Internet of Things technology. For example, more efficient hospital management can reduce the waiting time of the room; Artificial intelligence can improve diagnosis and get faster and more accurate diagnosis results; Through network connection, some patients with conditions can see and treat patients without occupying the bed of the hospital bed.
Unexpected consequences of industrial and medical Internet of Things
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
Chetan Khona, Marketing Director of Xilinx ISM Department, reminded us that in addition to the benefits and advantages that the industrial Internet of Things and the medical Internet of Things can bring, we should also see another side. With the revolution of the Internet of Things and the occurrence of the data explosion, the privacy issue has attracted more and more attention. In this process, a lot of customer data will be generated. The privacy protection of customer data is a difficult problem. Security issues can not be ignored. With the change of time, the security risks of some things increase, and the computing power increases. Hackers may invade the assets of companies and hospitals, bringing security maintenance problems. There are also problems of delay and responsiveness that affect security. With the development of artificial intelligence and automation, network connection, data management costs, transmission, storage and processing all need to be linked at all times, and the lack of reliable Internet connection is a major difficulty. Equipment, factories and hospitals are very expensive assets. The more people upgrade, the more flexible solutions are needed. Only in this way can we use the assets for a longer time, extend the asset life, and improve the return on investment. Xilinx can achieve the flexibility of hardware+software, making customers’ products more flexible and have better performance.
Integration of information and operation technology calls for a unified development platform
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
The above figure is a platform that many embedded engineer teams will use, which is in sharp contrast to the situation ten years ago. In the past, there were many engineering teams in the company, and they would make independent decisions in terms of design. For example, a team would choose PPC, VxWorks, CAN, arm, Linux, MQTT, and x86, Windows, OPC UA. The reason why they could choose these systems independently was that they were simple. But now these systems are not simple. For example, the industrial Internet of Things and the medical Internet of Things are very powerful, but they are becoming more and more complex, which makes the engineer team more willing to choose a common platform, a unified platform that can achieve collaborative design.
Mr. Chetan Khona told the editor of OFweek Electronic Engineering Network that the integration of information and operational technology is a major trend in the industry. For the industrial and medical Internet of Things, these capabilities need to be integrated into a single device. This process is very complex. Embedded design is not only about software and hardware development, but also about cloud developers who want to connect these information. So if we still follow the original method, different departments and designers choose different processing architectures, operating systems and connection standards, it will be too difficult for cloud developers, and they need to constantly adjust and change. They want to have a common architecture and platform, This can help them develop SaaS products quickly and easily. The reason why customers prefer Zynq and Zynq UltraScale+SoC is that Zynq is a scalable and highly integrated heterogeneous processor platform. Single-chip Zynq SoC not only has the ARM system, but also integrates DSP, FPGA, etc., which can provide services for cloud development, but also provide IT and OT support, as well as the flexible customization function of FPGA. The traditional industrial performance and customized functions make such products very competitive.
Xilinx’s industrial and medical IoT solution stack
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
For industrial and medical IoT customers, Xilinx provides a complete set of solutions, and is committed to helping customers develop the products they need by providing secure connectivity, control, vision, wiring, software and artificial intelligence. Xilinx is not an expert in all fields, but also uses a very wide range of ecosystems to help customers get the solutions they need. Xilinx not only has a world-class industrial and medical Internet of Things solution stack, but also can accelerate industrial PCs. For example, PC devices in hospitals and factories can be accelerated with Alveo accelerator cards. Secondly, Xilinx solution cloud and edge collaboration complementary solution is a major advantage in solving cloud and edge application workloads.
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
Xilinx’s advantages in the industrial field include industrial real-time and deterministic control and interface, industrial life cycle, quality, reliability, security, temperature and power consumption. Now Xilinx is doing the combination of industry-leading AI delay and performance and traditional advantages. Some enterprises may do AI, but they do not have traditional advantages. Xilinx has both advantages. For example, some GPUs can do AI, but they do not have traditional advantages. Some enterprises, such as TI, Reisa, and NZP, can do SoC, but they do not have AI capabilities. Therefore, many customers cannot use multiple device solutions. If Xilinx’s single-chip solution is adopted, it can ensure high integration and achieve the highest performance, At the same time, the cost is reduced.
Xilinx can realize AI supporting high throughput and low latency
Xilinx not only has independently developed DNN solutions that support the realization of low latency and high performance, but also has acquired technologies and capabilities through acquisition. For example, some of the technologies acquired through the acquisition of Shenjian Technology last year have enriched internal solutions through cooperation with enterprises, including KORTIQ, HALCON, Silicon Software, etc. Not all uses need AI function. Xilinx AI solution has very powerful performance, and can compete with servers, and can be used as embedded devices; For entry-level innovation entrepreneurs, Xiilnx offers a solution called Pynq, namely Python+Zynq, which is an open source product and is popular with young engineers.
You can see the contrast between the two models. One is that the traditional model has very powerful capabilities and functions, and the other is more like the open source community, which is based on the development of Python and Python community in the industrial field. Xilinx solution can support AI with high throughput and low latency, can also match the rapid pace of AI innovation, and can accelerate the overall application. Xilinx can accelerate the whole device, so that the whole process will not appear bottlenecks.
Many cameras and other devices are using Xilinx’s edge AI, such as the Alveo accelerator card, which is a new product and an integrated development board that can help customers put into production immediately. With this card, you can write software and insert it into the PC card slot. Compared with the CPU accelerator card, the acceleration performance is very obvious. The editor of OFweek Electronic Engineering Network learned that compared with the traditional solution, the search and analysis capability of Alveo database is 90 times, financial computing is 89 times, machine learning is 20 times, video processing is 12 times, high-performance computing and life science are 10 times faster.
Chany hospital is more intelligent: sirius makes efforts to accelerate the rapid development of industrial and medical internet of things
For industrial and medical Internet of Things customers, they can use Alveo accelerator cards, such as for robot motion planning. Now the development of robots has entered the stage of human-computer cooperation, and the robot planning in it is very important. Many human behaviors may be unpredictable. The whole process needs to be calculated with high intensity, and the Alveo accelerator card can provide solutions, which can provide efficiency. With the Alveo accelerator card, a PC can control 8 robots, which can greatly improve the structure and operation of the factory. The traditional device is like a container. It can provide some general functions of DSP and FPGA. FPGA can communicate and support. It is a logic device and does not provide high value. However, Zynq and Zynq UltraScale+SoC can integrate six major modules into a single customer board. Through Zynq and Zynq UltraScale+SoC, including general-purpose processing period DSP, GPU, simulation, security processor and security processor, such integration can provide customers with unprecedented value.
Xilinx’s three major solutions
For industrial and medical IoT customers, small size and low power consumption are required. In this respect, AI Edge can do it and provide very good performance of machine learning and other AI industrial applications.
Xilinx’s three strategic solutions include stack, Alveo accelerator card, and cooperation between edge and cloud. Through these, Xilinx has great medical advantages in the field of industry and the Internet of Things in the future. According to OFweek Electronic Engineering Network, Xilinx’s product roadmap in the industrial field, in addition to FPGA, SoC, MPSoC, RFSoC, ACAP, also includes Zynq, Zynq Ultra SCALE+. The latest product is ACAP. As a new category, its first product series, Versal, will be shipped in the second half of 2019.