Glossary

Terms a firmware engineer will encounter in the Alp SDK and E1M module documentation.

A–D

ADC — Analog-to-Digital Converter. The SDK's <alp/adc.h> abstracts the SoC's ADC peripheral.

AEN — Alp Lab module family based on Alif Ensemble silicon (E3..E8). See E1M-AEN.

alp-studio — The optional GUI / codegen tool that emits <alp/...> calls from block manifests + a pin allocator. See alplabai/alp-studio.

Block — An alp-studio concept: a reusable feature unit (button-LED, OLED display, IMU read) that Studio's pin allocator places against the active SoM.

board.yaml — The single declarative file at the root of every application. Top level lists som.sku, the board declaration (preset: shortcut or inline name: + populated: + e1m_routes:), an optional pins: array of E1M pads the project actively uses, the cores: block (per-core app / peripherals / libraries / extra_libraries / inference / iot / memory / power, with os: optional — defaults from the SoM topology), the declarative system blocks (boot:, ota:, storage:, security:), project-wide chips, cross-core ipc: carve-outs, and diagnostics: (with diagnostics.modules: for per-module log levels). See the board.yaml reference.

BRD_I2C — Board-management I²C bus on V2N + V2N-M1. Hosts the PMICs, RTC, OPTIGA, supervisor MCU slave interface.

Bridge (GD32) — The V2N module's on-module supervisor MCU (GD32G553) reachable over a hybrid SPI + I²C transport.

Board — The host PCB that an E1M SoM plugs into (formerly "carrier" — the noun was retired post-v0.6). The SDK ships presets for the E1M-EVK and E1M-X-EVK reference boards under metadata/boards/<preset>.yaml.

Chip driver — A non-OS-specific C module under chips/<part>/ that wraps a single silicon part. Symbols use the chip's natural name (e.g. lsm6dso_init); the alp_ prefix is reserved for SDK-level abstractions.

CMSIS — Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard. The SDK is CMSIS-compatible.

DEEPX DX-M1 — An on-module AI accelerator populated on V2N-M1 SKUs only. See E1M-X V2N-M1.

DRP-AI3 — Renesas's on-die NPU on the RZ/V2N silicon, exposed through <alp/inference.h>. The dispatcher compiles in automatically on V2N / V2N-M1 SoMs (silicon-determined from the SoM preset's capabilities:); apps select it per handle at runtime via alp_inference_open(.backend = ALP_INFERENCE_BACKEND_DRPAI).

E–K

E1M — 35 × 35 mm SoM form factor, 312 pads. AEN + N93 families ship in this size.

E1M-X — 45 × 65 mm SoM form factor, 496 pads. V2N family.

EVK — Evaluation Kit. The reference board Alp Lab ships for bring-up. Two flavours: E1M-EVK and E1M-X-EVK.

Ethos-U — Arm's micro-NPU IP. AEN E3/E5/E7 carry Ethos-U55 only; AEN E4/E6/E8 carry both U55 and U85 (the U85 is Transformer-capable, generative-AI forward path). N93 modules carry Ethos-U65.

Hand-written firmware — Application code that calls <alp/...> directly without alp-studio codegen. First-class consumer path — not a fallback.

HiL — Hardware-in-the-Loop testing.

hw_rev — Hardware revision label (e.g. r1, r2, …). Distinguishes board respins of the same SKU.

hw_info — Runtime structure populated from the on-module EEPROM manifest + BOARD_ID ADC. See <alp/hw_info.h>.

Kconfig — Linux kernel's configuration language. Zephyr + the SDK use it for per-feature opt-in.

L–P

Orchestrator — scripts/alp_orchestrate.py — reads board.yaml, resolves SoM SKU + board preset + per-core topology, runs the cross-field validator, fans out into per-core build slices, emits the system manifest + cross-slice generated headers (alp/system_ipc.h, dts-reservations.dtsi, dts-partitions.dtsi, sysbuild/tfm/tfm.conf). Replaced v0.5's single-slice loader (alp_project.py) when heterogeneous OS orchestration landed.

System manifest — build/system-manifest.yaml — per-slice status, log paths, artefact paths, boot order. Byte-stable across rebuilds; consumed by west alp-image, west alp-flash, west alp-renode, and OTA.

Slice — One per-core build directory under build/<core>-<os>/. Each slice is independently buildable and re-attemptable.

Carve-out — Shared-memory region declared in board.yaml's ipc: block; allocated by the orchestrator from the SoM preset's memory_map:.

Topology key set — The set of canonical core IDs a SoM exposes (e.g. a55_cluster, m33_sm on V2N). cores: keys in board.yaml must be a subset; typos fail the metadata-validate gate.

Helper-MCU firmware — Pre-built binaries the orchestrator bundles into the image (GD32 bridge on V2N, CC3501E OTP blob on AEN).

MDIO — Management Data Input/Output. The clause-22 bus used to configure Ethernet PHYs.

metadata/ — Repo subtree carrying chip manifests, SoC capability profiles, per-SKU presets, schemas, templates.

OPTIGA Trust M — Infineon's secure-element IC populated on every Alp Lab SoM. Exposed via <alp/chips/optiga_trust_m.h> or via <alp/security.h>.

OTA — Over-the-Air firmware update.

PMIC — Power Management IC. V2N + V2N-M1 carry two: ACT88760 (primary) + DA9292 (secondary).

prj.conf — Zephyr's per-application Kconfig fragment. In the SDK's examples it stays empty; the orchestrator emits the real config via OVERLAY_CONFIG.

Q–Z

RGMII — Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface. Used between the Renesas Ethernet MAC and the V2N module's two RTL8211FDI PHYs.

RZ/V2N — Renesas's vision/AI MPU family used on V2N modules. Quad Cortex-A55 + Cortex-M33 + DRP-AI3.

SWD — Serial Wire Debug. Arm's two-wire (SWDIO + SWCLK) debug protocol used to reflash + halt Cortex-M targets. The SDK ships a bit-bang controller that lets the V2N host reflash the on-module GD32G553 over three GPIOs.

Silicon ref — Triple-colon string identifying SoC silicon (e.g. renesas:rzv2n:n44, alif:ensemble:e7, nxp:imx9:imx93). Used in the per-SKU preset (metadata/e1m_modules/<MPN>.yaml) and <alp/soc_caps.h> selection.

SKU — Stock-Keeping Unit. In Alp terminology: an MPN that identifies a specific SoM configuration (e.g. E1M-V2N101).

SoC — System-on-Chip. The main silicon under a SoM's lid.

SoM — System-on-Module. Alp's per-SoC PCB module that plugs into a board (e.g. E1M-V2N101, E1M-AEN701).

som.yaml — Per-SKU manifest declaring silicon, populated chips, I²C device addresses, memory specs, default board. Lives at metadata/e1m_modules/<SKU>.yaml (one file per SKU, named after the MPN).

Supervisor MCU — The GD32G553 companion microcontroller on V2N modules. Owns peripherals that don't fit on the main SoC's pinmux.

TBD — "To be determined". Used in metadata where the authoritative value is pending.

V2N — Alp module family based on Renesas RZ/V2N silicon. E1M-X form factor. See E1M-X V2N.

V2N-M1 — V2N variant with the DEEPX DX-M1 NPU on-module. SKUs E1M-V2M101 / E1M-V2M102. See E1M-X V2N-M1.

west — Zephyr's meta-tool for workspace management + sub-commands. The SDK ships an extension command west alp-build that pre-flights board.yaml validation before delegating to west build.

Wi-Fi 6 — 802.11ax. AEN's CC3501E + V2N's Murata module both support it.

Yocto — Embedded Linux build system. Selected via os: yocto in board.yaml.

Zephyr — The RTOS the SDK targets as a first-class backend (os: zephyr). Pinned to v4.4.0.