Introducing the i.MX 91 Family of Applications Processors

The newest member of the i.MX 9 series of applications processors from NXP builds on the success and appeal of the recently launched i.MX 93 family of applications processors for secure, efficient Linux^® computing in edge platforms. Building on over two decades of leadership in developing multi-market applications processors, the i.MX 91 is designed to speed up time to market of customers building the next generation of IoT and industrial applications.

Streamline The Development Of Edge Platforms With Secure, Reliable, Scalable i.MX 91 Applications Processors

The i.MX 91 family is defined to be the essence of long-life, cost-optimized and flexible Linux^®-based application platforms. Thousands of applications ranging from Industry 4.0, medical, consumer and IoT markets can be developed and enabled using the i.MX 91 and i.MX 93 families' common platform. Emerging new product opportunities such as electric vehicle charging or smart home Matter devices are driving change in hardware and software, including new industry standards and protocols. The large open-source ecosystem for Linux^® enables adoption of new protocols and standards in easily supported and reusable ways.

Edge platforms built using the i.MX 93 and i.MX 91 family interoperability can improve time-to-market and enable platforms optimized for size, power and cost. i.MX 93 and i.MX 91 family interoperability is delivered through two common packages and enables the rapid development of platforms that may easily pivot into new markets and new applications by leveraging existing investments in i.MX 93 SoC-based platforms.

“The i.MX 91 family extends NXP's leadership in smart controllers. Next-generation Linux devices based on the i.MX 91 applications processors will be high-performance, affordable, and secure solutions, enabling quicker and easier adoption of updated protocols or new standards as they are introduced. It provides engineers with an essential platform to add intelligence into traditional embedded and IoT systems, while also delivering scalability through the larger i.MX 9 series."

Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst at TIRIAS Research

As part of the i.MX 9 series focus on edge-informed architectures, the i.MX 91 family focuses on reliability and longevity. The i.MX 91 family will be part of the NXP 15-year product longevity program, building a portfolio of products to enable a stable supply of embedded platforms. Qualified for both consumer and industrial levels, the i.MX 91 SoCs feature fast 2.4GT/s LPDDR4 memory support to enable low-power designs with long-term availability and choice of reliability, quality and manufacturer. The i.MX 91 family supports multi-tasking, virtualized or complex missions, as well as soft or hard real-time platforms, by featuring an energy-efficient combination of Arm^® Cortex^®-A55 applications processor core with low power LPDDR4 memory, that offers 9% lower-power than LPDDR3, and 23% lower power than DDR3L. Additionally, the i.MX 91 platform offers inline error correction and control (ECC) for system memory, permitting specific memory region protection to minimize the impact of adverse operating conditions while maximizing application bandwidth.

Security is a critical requirement for edge platforms, which the i.MX 91 family delivers through the integrated EdgeLock ^® Secure Enclave that provides out-of-the-box security and manageability, and a fast path to security certifications. Run-time attestation, trust provisioning, key management and a silicon root-of-trust contribute to the embedded security protecting the system. NXP enables a fast path to Common Criteria EAL6+ certified solutions with co-developed Secure Elements and secure authenticator components with optionally pre-injected keys and certificates, bringing additional tamper resistance and support for additional secure use cases.

The combination of rich I/O and energy-efficient processing built for long-life platforms and reliable computing can enable thousands of edge processing platforms to be rapidly enabled, for applications extending beyond what is built today. The i.MX 91 family will be accompanied by a co-developed power management solution and is compatible with the i.MX 93 family ecosystem. The i.MX 91 family may be used with the family of IW612 tri-radio communications solutions, enabling Wi-Fi 6, BlueTooth 5.2 and Matter . Select customers and partners will be able to join the early access program in 2H23, with broad availability in late 2024. Find the technical details and specifications on the i.MX 91 product page, here, to get started planning the next generation of secure, connected edge platforms with NXP.