Israeli chip startup Hailo has launched a new series of artificial vision chips called Hailo-15, which are designed for different use cases than its flagship Hailo-8 chip. While the Hailo-8 was primarily used as an image processing co-processor in industrial peripherals and aggregators, the Hailo-15 series is a system on a chip (SoC) designed for IP cameras. Hailo-15 includes an integrated accelerator, CPU and DSP to provide heterogeneous computing capabilities. The Hailo-15 series provides less processing power than the Hailo-8, and its AI accelerator architecture is “similar to Hailo-8 but improved.”
The Hailo-15 series is designed for multitasking, making it ideal for multi-sensor smart cameras. It offers 7 to 20 TOPS of INT8 performance, depending on the part number. Hailo-15H offers the highest performance with 20 TOPS, followed by Hailo-15M with 11 TOPS and Hailo-15L with 7 TOPS. The power consumption of the chips depends on the load, but today customers use less than 2 watts.
Hailo CEO Orr Danon said customers are looking for solutions that will allow them to reuse their software investment across multiple environments, whether it’s a camera or a gateway. The Hailo-15 series solves this problem by using the same technology stack as the Hailo-8, which is new and improved, yet fully compatible with various forms of deployment.
Customers usually buy the Hailo-8 or Hailo-15 series, but some installations may use both. For example, image processing can be performed at the endpoint, and streams from multiple cameras are combined at the gateway. The Hailo-15 series offers customers the flexibility to use third party CPUs and DSPs without a RISC-V license. Danon stated that DSP is an effective tool to bridge the gap between CPU and AI accelerator by offering a more efficient AI processing solution.
In addition to improving image quality, AI can be used for multiple tasks at the same time, including low-light performance and digital zoom. These applications are common in smartphone cameras but not yet implemented in IP cameras. Hailo’s new product line offers a cost-effective and compact solution for customers looking to expand the capabilities of their IP cameras.