E1M™ Platform Overview
E1M™ is Alp Lab's modular edge AI platform. It combines an open standard form factor with Alp Lab SoM products that conform to it, and the ALP SDK that unifies firmware across every conformant module.
The E1M open standard
E1M defines the universe of physical pads on two LGA module sizes and which peripheral signals each pad may carry. The standard is intentionally silicon-agnostic — the same carrier can host an Alif Ensemble module, a Renesas RZ/V2N module, or any third-party SoM that conforms.
| Form factor | Size | Pad count | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| E1M | 35 × 35 mm | 312 | MCU-class compute + on-chip NPU |
| E1M-X | 45 × 65 mm | 496 | MPU-class compute + dual Ethernet + PCIe + MIPI CSI |
The full specification is published at alplabai/e1m-spec under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the E1M standard page for the public summary.
Architecture
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Application Code │
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ ALP SDK <alp/...> │
│ (unification layer, CMSIS) │
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ OS backend │
│ (Zephyr · Yocto · bare-metal) │
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ Vendor SDK / HAL │
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ E1M / E1M-X SoM (any vendor) │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
A single declarative board.yaml at the application root selects the SoM SKU, carrier, OS backend, inference backend, libraries, and peripherals. The SDK's loader emits the per-backend native config (Zephyr Kconfig fragment, CMake -D flags, or Yocto local.conf snippet) so the underlying build plumbing stays unchanged.
Alp Lab module families
E1M-AEN
Based on Alif Semiconductor Ensemble processors (E3..E8). Ultra-low-power edge AI with up to 1024 GOPS Ethos-U55 performance. Targets Zephyr and bare-metal.
E1M-X V2N
Based on Renesas RZ/V2N — quad Cortex-A55 @ 1.8 GHz + Cortex-M33 + DRP-AI3 (4 TOPS). Runs Yocto Linux on the A55 cluster and Zephyr on the M33.
E1M-X V2N-M1
V2N + on-module DEEPX DX-M1 accelerator (25 TOPS dense). Pin-compatible with the base V2N for drop-in upgrades.
E1M-N93
Based on NXP i.MX 9352 — dual Cortex-A55 + Cortex-M33 + Ethos-U65 (~0.5 TOPS). Yocto-first.
Industrial Edge-AI Camera
A complete plug-and-play vision system built on E1M-X V2N-M1 with industrial optics, IP67/IP20 enclosures, and PoE.
Evaluation kits
| EVK | Hosts | Doc |
|---|---|---|
| E1M EVK | E1M-AEN family, E1M-N93 family | Overview |
| E1M-X EVK | E1M-X V2N family, V2N-M1 family | Overview |
Both EVKs are the canonical reference design for customer carrier boards — most production carriers inherit ~80 % of the EVK's chip population.
Key platform properties
- Vendor agnostic — switch silicon families without touching application code.
- Open standard — the form factor is public; third parties can ship conformant SoMs.
- Long-term availability — designed for 10+ year industrial product life cycles.
- Industrial grade — operating temperature -40 °C to +85 °C across the catalogue.
- Unified toolchain — one
board.yamland one SDK API across Zephyr, Yocto, and bare-metal.