Axera AX650 (AX650N)
Product Overview
AX650N (commonly known as AX650) is the third-generation high-compute, high-energy-efficiency smart vision SoC released by Axera (AXERA) on March 6, 2023, the flagship edge chip following the AX620 and AX630 series. It integrates an octa-core ARM Cortex-A55 @1.7GHz, a proprietary high-performance mixed-precision NPU, AI-ISP, and a VPU, making it one of the best deployment platforms for Transformer models at the edge.
The AX650N provides the latest official compute of 18 TOPS@INT8 / 72 TOPS@INT4 (early release information stated 10.8 TOPS@INT8 / 43.2 TOPS@INT4), supports INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16/FP32 mixed precision, natively supports Transformer networks such as ViT/DeiT/Swin/DETR/DINOv2, and consumes only about 4W typically. Its video capabilities reach 8K@30fps encoding, 8K@60fps decoding, and 32-stream 1080p parallel decoding, and it is widely used in smart cities, smart transportation, smart manufacturing, and video conferencing.
Specification correction note: The "about 43 TOPS" in some overviews corresponds to the early-release INT4 (43.2 TOPS) figure, not INT8; the latest official specification is INT8 18 TOPS / INT4 72 TOPS. Recorded here per the latest official data.
Core Specifications
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Octa-core ARM Cortex-A55 @1.7GHz + proprietary mixed-precision NPU + AI-ISP + VPU |
| Process Node | Not disclosed (estimated 12nm or 14nm class, same generation as AX620) |
| FP16 / BF16 Compute | Not disclosed (mixed precision supported; specific TFLOPS not listed separately) |
| INT8 Compute | 18 TOPS (latest official spec; early release information stated 10.8 TOPS) |
| INT4 Compute | 72 TOPS (latest official spec; early release information stated 43.2 TOPS) |
| FP32 Compute | Supported (mixed precision) |
| Memory Capacity | 8GB (standard 64-bit LPDDR4X, up to 32GB LPDDR4X) |
| Memory Type | LPDDR4X (64-bit) |
| Memory Bandwidth | Not disclosed |
| TDP | About 4 W (typical) |
| Interconnect | Dual Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.0/2.0, PCIe 2.0/SATA3.0, HDMI 2.0b, MIPI D-PHY, I2S/I2C/UART/SPI |
| Interface | SoC onboard (core board / edge box / accelerator card) |
| Launch | 2023-03 |
| Mass Production/Availability | In mass production 2023 |
Key Features
- Native Transformer support: efficient edge deployment of ViT/DeiT/Swin/SwinV2/DETR/DINOv2.
- 8K video: 8K@30fps encoding, 8K@60fps decoding, and 32-stream 1080p@30fps parallel decoding.
- AI-ISP: AI-HDR and AI-3DNR for real-time ultra-clear image quality in low-light environments.
- Ultra-low power: about 4W typical, with high energy efficiency for always-on edge deployment.
- Rich interfaces: dual Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.0, PCIe2.0/SATA, HDMI2.0b, and multiple MIPI lanes.
- Multiple form factors: IPC, edge boxes, and accelerator cards (e.g., the 1050 series and the AXera-Pi Pro developer board).
Vendor Information
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Company | Axera Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (AXERA, 0600.HK) |
| Headquarters | Shanghai, China |
| Founded | 2019-05 |
Use Cases
- ✅ Smart cameras, edge AI boxes, video conferencing, smart cities/transportation/manufacturing, edge Transformer inference
- ❌ Large model training, hyperscale cloud inference
Related Cards
- /docs/cards/others/axera-ax620 — Same vendor's second-generation vision SoC
- /docs/cards/others/hailo-15 — Smart camera SoC comparison
- /docs/cards/others/moore-threads-mtt-s5000 — Chinese GPU compute card comparison