Arm and NVIDIA: Building the trusted compute foundation for the agentic AI era
From the CPUs running agents to the infrastructure enforcing security around them, Arm powers both sides of the trust boundary for the agentic era.
Vendor:
Arm Ltd.
Category:
NPU
NPU
Accelerate Edge AI Innovation AI data-processing workloads at the edge are already transforming use cases and user experiences.
Overview
Accelerate Edge AI Innovation
AI data-processing workloads at the edge are already transforming use cases and user experiences. The third-generation Ethos NPU helps meet the needs of future edge AI use cases.
The Ethos-U85 offers support for transformer-based models at the edge, the foundation for newer language and vision models, scales from 128 to 2048 MAC units, and is 20% more energy efficient than Arm Ethos-U55 and Arm Ethos-U65, enabling higher performance edge AI use cases in a sustainable way. Offering the same toolchain as previous Ethos-U generations, partners can benefit from seamless migration and leverage investments in Arm-based machine learning (ML) tools.
AI data-processing workloads at the edge are already transforming use cases and user experiences. The third-generation Ethos NPU helps meet the needs of future edge AI use cases.
The Ethos-U85 offers support for transformer-based models at the edge, the foundation for newer language and vision models, scales from 128 to 2048 MAC units, and is 20% more energy efficient than Arm Ethos-U55 and Arm Ethos-U65, enabling higher performance edge AI use cases in a sustainable way. Offering the same toolchain as previous Ethos-U generations, partners can benefit from seamless migration and leverage investments in Arm-based machine learning (ML) tools.
Key features
- Sustainable Innovation
- 20% more energy efficient than Ethos-U55 and Ethos-U65, enabling future use cases in a sustainable way.
- Scalable Performance
- Scales from 128 to 2048 MACs, providing up to 4 TOPs of performance at 1 GHz.
- Generative AI at the Edge
- Native support for transformer networks, along with support for Tensor Operator Set Architecture (TOSA) as a standard.
- System Level Solution
- Supported by Arm Corstone-320, a reference design with a unified toolchain and the extensive Ethos-U ecosystem.
Block Diagram
ETHOS-U85 block diagram
Benefits
- The Arm Ethos-U85 is the highest performance implementation of the Arm Ethos-U NPU. It enables enhanced edge AI processing with support for transformer-based models and delivers 20% more energy efficiency than previous generations of Ethos. The key characteristics of Ethos-U85 include:
- Scalable performance – 256 GOP/s up to 4 TOPs at 1 GHz
- Scales from 128 to 2048 MACs
- Further reduced energy consumption – 20% lower than previous Ethos-U NPUs
- Native support for transformer-based networks
- Scalable performance – 256 GOP/s up to 4 TOPs at 1 GHz
- Ethos-U85 targets numerous different applications with use in high-performance Arm Cortex-A or low-power embedded devices based on Arm Cortex-M.
Specifications
Identity
Part Number
ETHOS-U85
Vendor
Arm Ltd.
Type
Silicon IP
Files
Note: some files may require an NDA depending on provider policy.
Provider
HQ:
Great Britain
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Frequently asked questions about NPU IP cores
What is NPU?
NPU is a NPU IP core from Arm Ltd. listed on Semi IP Hub.
How should engineers evaluate this NPU?
Engineers should review the overview, key features, supported foundries and nodes, maturity, deliverables, and provider information before shortlisting this NPU IP.
Can this semiconductor IP be compared with similar products?
Yes. Buyers can compare this product with similar semiconductor IP cores or IP families based on category, provider, process options, and structured technical specifications.