E1M-AEN

The E1M-AEN is an edge AI System-on-Module built around the Alif Semiconductor Ensemble family of processors. AEN modules ship in the 35 × 35 mm E1M form factor and target ultra-low-power inference at the edge.

Module variants

All AEN SKUs share the same module PCB. Pick by Alif silicon tier (cores + NPU count + memory).

SKU	Silicon	Status
E1M-AEN301	Alif Ensemble E3	production
E1M-AEN401	Alif Ensemble E4	preliminary
E1M-AEN501	Alif Ensemble E5	preliminary
E1M-AEN601	Alif Ensemble E6	preliminary
E1M-AEN701	Alif Ensemble E7	production
E1M-AEN801	Alif Ensemble E8	preliminary

At a glance

Parameter	Value
Application core	Arm Cortex-M55 HP @ 400 MHz + Cortex-M55 HE @ 160 MHz
Real-time core	Cortex-A32 @ 800 MHz (E5/E6/E7/E8 variants)
AI accelerators	2× Arm Ethos-U55 (all SKUs) + 1× Arm Ethos-U85 (E4/E6/E8 only) — Transformer-capable, generative-AI forward path
AI throughput	up to ~1024 GOPS (U55 path); U85 adds Transformer kernels
Power profile	Ultra-low-power
Form factor	E1M (35 × 35 mm), LGA
OS targets	Zephyr · bare-metal

What's on the module

Role	Part	Bus / signal	Driver
Application SoC	Alif Ensemble E3..E8	--	(vendor HAL)
Wi-Fi 6 + BLE 5.4	TI CC3501E	inter-chip SPI1 + SDIO	<alp/chips/cc3501e.h>
Secure element	Infineon OPTIGA Trust M	LPI2C	<alp/chips/optiga_trust_m.h>
RTC	Micro Crystal RV-3028-C7	LPI2C	<alp/chips/rv3028c7.h>
Temperature sensor	TI TMP112	LPI2C	<alp/chips/tmp112.h>
EEPROM (SoM manifest)	Onsemi N24S128	LPI2C	<alp/chips/eeprom_24c128.h>
Ethernet PHY	TI DP83825IRMQR	RMII	Zephyr PHY driver

CC3501E coprocessor

Wi-Fi 6 and BLE 5.4 ride a dedicated TI CC3501E co-MCU rather than driver-level Wi-Fi on the Alif silicon. The host driver speaks the documented inter-chip protocol over SPI1:

alp_spi_t *bus = alp_spi_open(&(alp_spi_config_t){
    .bus_id        = E1M_SPI1,
    .freq_hz       = 8000000,
    .mode          = ALP_SPI_MODE_0,
    .bits_per_word = 8,
});

cc3501e_t fw;
cc3501e_init(&fw, bus);
cc3501e_reset(&fw);

The driver header is <alp/chips/cc3501e.h>.

Inference

AEN's NPUs are exposed through the SDK's <alp/inference.h> dispatcher. The TFLite-Micro library picks the right backend per SKU:

SKU	Primary NPU	Kconfig
AEN301 / AEN501 / AEN701 (E3 / E5 / E7)	2× Ethos-U55	CONFIG_ALP_TFLM_ETHOS_U55=y
AEN401 / AEN601 / AEN801 (E4 / E6 / E8)	1× Ethos-U85 (primary) + 2× Ethos-U55 (secondary)	CONFIG_ALP_TFLM_ETHOS_U85=y + CONFIG_ALP_TFLM_ETHOS_U55=y

Models are Vela-compiled TFLite Micro programs. The SDK ships a complete reference at examples/aen/edgeai-vision-aen (camera → ISP → Ethos-U inference → OLED overlay).

Boot + identification

AEN follows the standard two-stage SoM-ID flow used by every Alp Lab module family:

1. EEPROM manifest — 128-byte block on the on-module 24C128 EEPROM carrying family / SKU / hw_rev / serial / mfg date. Read via alp_hw_info_read().
2. BOARD_ID ADC — per-rev resistor divider sampled by the SDK at boot to confirm the running firmware matches the hardware revision.

See <alp/hw_info.h>.

Getting started

1. Mount the E1M-AEN on a compatible carrier (E1M-EVK or custom) using the E1M LGA pads.
2. Install the ALP SDK.
3. Drop a board.yaml at your app root with som.sku: E1M-AEN701 (or your SKU) and carrier.name: E1M-EVK.
4. Build and flash with west alp-build -b alp_e1m_evk_aen .... See the Quick Start.

Resources

• Firmware quickstart — AEN-specific patterns
• <alp/inference.h> — Ethos-U dispatcher
• Chip catalogue — every on-module driver
• Industrial inquiries