MEMS and Sensors

Microchip revises Ethernet sensor bridge for edge AI systems

18 August 2026
The PolarFire FPGA Ethernet sensor bridge revision is used in Nvidia AI powered systems for applications like robotics, medical and industrial. Source: Microchip

Microchip Technology has released a revision to its PolarFire field-programmable gate array (FPGA) Ethernet sensor bridge, a smaller production-ready board for integration into Nvidia edge AI systems.

Microchip said the need for this revision comes from the shift to compact, high-performance AI systems that is pushing sensor connectivity to smaller form factors to provide more space for racks and architectures.

The revision to the Ethernet sensor bridge enables a 60% smaller form factor with support for twice the number of cameras and is USB-C powered for rack deployment. Microchip said these changes allow engineers to replace multi-interface sensor connections with a 10 Gb Ethernet-based architecture that reduces complexity.

This could be used for AI applications powered by Nvidia Jetson and IGX systems like:

  • Medical
  • Industrial
  • Humanoid robotics

The updated board includes support for up to four cameras that are compatible with Nvidia Jetson and features on-board optical latency measurement circuitry for validation using Nvidia’s display analysis tool.

Other features on the board include:

  • Cameras
  • Cables
  • Reference design
  • Board schematics
  • Design collateral
  • Integrated timing and power management ICs
  • Interface support including MIPI CSI‑2, I²C, UART and GPIO
  • Multiple sensor and video interface support like SLVS-EC 2.0, 12G-SDI, HDMI and DisplayPort
To contact the author of this article, email PBrown@globalspec.com


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