Microchip Technology has released Revision 2.0 of its PolarFire FPGA Ethernet Sensor Bridge, a significantly smaller, production-ready board for standardized sensor integration leveraging NVIDIA Holoscan Sensor Bridge (HSB) technology.
The Rev 2.0 HSB-enabled board delivers a 60% smaller form factor, supports twice the number of cameras, is USB‑C powered for streamlined rack deployment and is being offered at a lower price point than the first generation. These enhancements enable designers to replace complex, multi‑interface sensor connections with scalable, power-efficient 10Gb Ethernet‑based architectures reducing overall system cost and bill‑of‑materials complexity. These benefits are essential for AI driven medical, industrial and humanoid robotics applications powered by NVIDIA edge computing platforms like NVIDIA Jetson and IGX.
“Developers want to spend their time building high-value edge AI applications, not stitching together proprietary sensor interfaces,” said Shakeel Peera, vice president of Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “With low power PolarFire FPGA technology at its core, this second-generation Ethernet sensor bridge delivers a power-efficient, secure foundation in a significantly reduced form factor to help teams move faster from development to deployment in edge AI systems.”
Built on PolarFire FPGA technology, the updated design supports up to four cameras, features camera connector that’s compatible with NVIDIA Jetson and includes on‑board optical latency measurement circuitry. This helps enable end‑to‑end latency validation—from sensor capture to AI inference—using NVIDIA Latency Display Analysis Tool.
The board features an FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) expansion connector that supports future feature growth and supports interfaces including MIPI CSI‑2, I²C, UART and GPIO. The flexible design allows support for multiple sensor and video interfaces such as SLVS‑EC 2.0, 12G‑SDI, HDMI and DisplayPort, without requiring a redesign of the core platform. A standard PMOD connector further enhances system extensibility.
