Artificial Intelligence

We enable and provide AI – for reliable and efficient AI at the edge

Ever wondered how your devices can become smarter and more efficient? Edge AI is the answer. Learn about the tech that's bringing intelligence to the edge and the innovative microcontrollers that make it possible.

Internet of Things
Edge AI
Article

Jul 08, 2025

The Edge of Intelligence: Unlocking the Power of AI in the Real World

Imagine a world where your home adjusts its temperature and lighting to your liking, without you lifting a finger. Where your car anticipates and responds to potential hazards on the road, ensuring a safer journey. Where healthcare devices can detect anomalies in your vital signs, alerting healthcare professionals to potential issues before they become serious. This is the promise of Edge AI, a revolutionary technology that brings artificial intelligence closer to the source of the data, enabling faster, more efficient, and more reliable decision-making.

But what exactly is Edge AI, and how does it work? What are the real-world use cases that are driving its adoption and what role do semiconductors play in enabling this technology, particularly microcontrollers that serve as the "brain" of edge devices? In this article, we'll delve into the world of Edge AI, exploring its applications, the hardware that enables it, and the software that brings it to life. We'll take a closer look at innovative microcontrollers like PSOC™ Edge and AURIX™, and introduce DEEPCRAFT™, a software framework that's pushing the boundaries of Edge AI. Join us on this journey to the edge of intelligence, where the possibilities are endless, and the future is being written.

Read more about Infineon’s Edge AI technology and solutions here.

Woman with child
Woman with child
Woman with child

What is Edge AI?

Edge artificial intelligence (Edge AI) is the implementation and deployment of AI applications in an edge computing environment or device close to where the data is sourced and located, rather than in a central environment such as in a cloud computing facility.

A common use case for deploying Edge AI is smart speakers with voice assistant technology using speech recognition analysis, relying on a set of complex AI technologies. These include the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) to convert the sound waves into words. Those words are then converted into actual meanings using Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and then the smart speaker responds using Natural Language Generation (NLG).

Additional trends include the smart home as well as the health, lifestyle and wearables market where AI is set to improve the efficiency of edge devices and provide frictionless user experiences.
 
  • Smart Homes and Buildings: Infineon makes buildings smart at all levels with AI-powered technologies. We make areas of a building such as heating/ventilation/air conditioning, lighting or access control smarter by enabling presence detection, air quality monitoring, failure detection (predictive maintenance) and many other use cases. Our product portfolio of sensors, microcontrollers, power semiconductors and connectivity solutions enable buildings to collect meaningful data, gain insights, and make better decisions to optimize operations according to occupant needs. This includes applications such as intelligent lighting control, demand-based ventilation and thermal management. Our solutions make buildings greener, more efficient and more intuitive. 
  • Health, Lifestyle and Wearables: Infineon supports the next generation of health and wellness technologies with sensor, computing, security, connectivity and power management solutions. Our products and solutions form the basis for health monitoring algorithms in lifestyle and healthcare wearables, enabling highly accurate sensing of altitude, location, vital signs and sounds while consuming the least amount of power. While the current generation of wearables relies mainly on algorithms in the cloud, the next generation of wearables will use sophisticated AI on the device itself.
  • Smart Car: Infineon's Edge AI solutions play a crucial role in the automotive industry, enabling vehicles to become increasingly autonomous, connected, and electrified. Our AI-powered technologies support advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), such as lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking. Additionally, our solutions enable the development of autonomous vehicles, which rely on complex AI algorithms to process vast amounts of data from various sensors, including cameras, radar, and lidar. Our sensors, microcontrollers, and power semiconductors, provide the necessary building blocks for the automotive industry to create safer, more efficient, and more comfortable vehicles. Furthermore, supporting the development of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, which enables vehicles to communicate with other vehicles, infrastructure, and pedestrians, enhancing road safety and reducing traffic congestion.
  • Industry: With our Edge AI solutions we are also enabling the creation of smart factories and Industry 4.0 applications. Our technologies support predictive maintenance, quality control, and process optimization. This allows manufacturers to reduce downtime, increase productivity, and improve product quality. Additionally, we enable the development of autonomous robots and machines, which can perform complex tasks with increased accuracy and efficiency. Our Edge AI solutions support the development of industrial IoT applications, such as condition monitoring, asset tracking, and supply chain optimization, enabling manufacturers to make data-driven decisions and stay competitive in a rapidly changing market.

Microcontrollers – the “brains” of Edge AI

At the heart – or rather the head – of Edge AI lies the hardware that enables it. Microcontrollers serve as the "brain" of edge devices, processing data in real-time and making decisions without relying on the cloud. Infineon's PSOC™ Edge and AURIX™ microcontrollers play a crucial role in unlocking the potential of Edge AI. They provide the necessary processing power, memory, and interfaces to connect sensors, actuators, and other devices, allowing for the creation of intelligent systems that can perceive, process, and respond to their environment. By integrating AI capabilities into these microcontrollers, edge devices can perform complex tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics, all while minimizing latency and maximizing efficiency.

Infineon’s solutions

PSOC™ Edge

The PSOC™ Edge family is a new generation of microcontrollers that accelerates Edge AI across diverse applications. Combining a high-performance Arm Cortex-M core with a dedicated AI engine, it enables real-time, cloud-independent AI tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics. Typical use cases include smart home (voice control, gesture recognition), industrial automation (predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, quality control), healthcare devices, and automotive systems. With a focus on performance, power efficiency, and security, PSOC™ Edge aims to speed Edge AI adoption for intelligent, connected, autonomous systems. 

Learn more
PSOC edge
PSOC edge
PSOC edge
PSOC edge
PSOC edge
PSOC edge
AURIX™

The AURIX™ family is a high-performance, safety-critical microcontroller line that supports Edge AI in demanding domains such as automotive, industrial automation, and healthcare devices; its multicore architecture, strong processing capabilities, and advanced security enable real-time handling of large data volumes while meeting stringent safety requirements. Integrated AI enables predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and autonomous decision-making—examples include automotive ADAS and autonomous driving, and industrial uses like predictive maintenance, quality control, and process optimization. 

Learn more

Software: key for enabling Edge AI

woman coding software
woman coding software
woman coding software

The role of software in Edge AI is multifaceted and plays a crucial part in unlocking the full potential of edge devices. The right software allows handling constraints like limited compute, memory, and bandwidth while ensuring security, reliability, and scalability. Therefore, software solutions for Edge AI must be highly optimized, efficient, and adaptable, support a wide range of AI workloads from computer vision to natural language processing, empowering developers to build innovative devices that transform industries and revolutionize the way we live and work. In the rapidly converging fields of embedded systems and artificial intelligence, engineers rely on comprehensive software ecosystems for Edge AI development with accelerated production paths. 

The following article focuses on Edge AI models that can enable different use cases on Infineon hardware.

DEEPCRAFT™ AI Suite: Enabling Edge AI for all skill sets

Infineon's DEEPCRAFT™ software provides a comprehensive set of AI tools, models, solutions and a development platform. The DEEPCRAFT™ AI Suite supports nearly any Edge AI use case, and the entire offering is optimized for Infineon's microcontrollers, such as PSOC™ Edge and AURIX™. Armed with the Infineon MCUs and sensors alongside DEEPCRAFT™ software, developers can create edge devices for use cases that range from smart home automation, to industrial predictive maintenance, and autonomous vehicles. For example, DEEPCRAFT™ can be used to develop a smart home system that can recognize gestures and adjust lighting and temperature.

  • DEEPCRAFT™ AI Hub – The DEEPCRAFT™ AI Hub is a centralized place to find all DEEPCRAFT™ software. Organized by use case, it’s simple to navigate to the right platform, tools, and models that suit your needs, providing a quicker path to market. Developers can also get inspiration from a wide variety of open-source models and case studies across industrial, consumer and automotive applications.
  • DEEPCRAFT™ Studio – Developers can use DEEPCRAFT™ Studio's unique and powerful modeling capabilities to make custom Edge AI models with any time-series or image data. The end-to-end, deep learning-based platform enables data collection, preprocessing, model training, evaluation and finally optimization for target hardware. When your model is production-ready, streamlined deployment paths are available via ModusToolbox™ and AURIX™ Development Studio for the Infineon microcontroller of choice. DEEPCRAFT™ Studio is designed to be intuitive enough for non-experts to be able to successfully develop and take Edge AI models to market. DEEPCRAFT™ Studio Accelerators offer a fast-track for development: start your project using these open-source models with datasets, preprocessing, model architecture and instructions. For more expert users, the intuitive Graph UX interface gives unique insight into the model development process, allowing for more advanced machine learning.
  • DEEPCRAFT™ Model Converter – With the DEEPCRAFT™ Model Converter, you can efficiently:
    • Convert AI models to run on the edge
    • Optimize AI models so they become highly compact and high-performance, designed to run on Infineon microcontrollers
    • Validate your models with a dataset to check that the generated code matches the performance in the original model
  • DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Models – These pre-trained, fully tested, market-ready models enable companies to add AI features into their products without the need for in-house machine learning development. DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Models are optimized to work with Infineon's sensors and MCUs. There are currently eight DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Models available:
    • DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Model for Baby Cry Detection, Cough Detection, Direction of Arrival Detection, Factory Alarm Detection, Siren Detection, Snore Detection [all Audio]
    • DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Model for Fall Detection (Accelerometer)
    • DEEPCRAFT™ Ready Model for Gesture Detection (Radar)
  • DEEPCRAFT™ Voice Assistant – With this software solution developers can create natural voice interfaces for their products using AI models for wake words and commands that leverage advanced, power-efficient audio and AI acceleration capabilities of Infineon's PSOC™ Edge MCUs. With an easy-to-use Voice Assistant configuration tool, you can create your own AI-powered voice interface without the need for expertise in audio or machine learning.
  • DEEPCRAFT™ Audio Enhancement – This software solution enables developers to optimize the performance of voice and audio features using AI models for noise suppression and other critical audio pipeline components including beamforming, acoustic echo cancellation, and dereverberation. AI-powered algorithm innovations are integrated with the advanced, power-efficient audio and AI acceleration capabilities of PSOC™ Edge MCUs.

Learn more about the DEEPCRAFT™ AI Suite at www.infineon.com/deepcraft

As a global semiconductor manufacturer, we enable customers and partners to create energy-efficient, high-performance, and reliable AI applications. Our products, software, tools, and services support the development of AI-based applications, from data and ML pipelines to high-performance, low-power AI-enabled MCUs.

By understanding the role of semiconductors in AI, we can unlock the full potential of this technology and create a more efficient, connected, and intelligent world.

Child looking at robot
Child looking at robot
Child looking at robot