INTEL AMD Mainboards with M.2 Slot working with HAILO M.2 or anything to check first

General
, , ,
1

Technical Inquiry: M.2 Slot Requirements for HAILO AI Chip on New AI PC Build (Linux Ubuntu & Windows Compatibility)

Dear HAILO Support Team,

We are planning to build a new AI PC to serve as a reference system for AI testing using the HAILO AI Chip. This PC will need to run the HAILO AI M.2 card under both Linux Ubuntu and Windows 10/11.

As we intend to utilize M.2 slots for flexibility and expandability, we have some important questions regarding the technical compatibility of the motherboard’s M.2 slots with the HAILO AI Chip.

Specifically, we would appreciate information on the following aspects:

  1. What technical specifications of the M.2 slots are mandatory for the HAILO AI Chip to be correctly recognized and utilized by the operating system (Linux Ubuntu and Windows 10/11) when installed in the motherboard’s M.2 slot?
  • Does the number of PCIe lanes play a critical role? If so, what is the minimum required number?
  • Is support for a specific PCIe generation (e.g., PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0) necessary or recommended for optimal performance of the HAILO AI Chip?
  • Are there any other technical details of the M.2 slots (e.g., keying, size) that need to be considered?
  1. Are there any specific recommendations for motherboard manufacturers or chipsets (Intel or AMD) that are known to work well with HAILO AI M.2 cards? Or are the technical specifications mentioned above the only crucial factors, making the choice of motherboard manufacturer less important?
  2. We have seen examples for the Raspberry Pi 5 with Dual M.2. Do you potentially have reference configurations or tested motherboards with Dual M.2 slots for Intel or AMD platforms that you could recommend for our use cases (AI testing under Linux and Windows)? Information on successfully deployed motherboards would be very helpful for our selection process.

Our goal is to procure the correct hardware from the outset to avoid compatibility issues and establish a reliable testing environment. Your expertise and guidance during this planning phase would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Sincerely,
Chris089

2

The Hailo-8/8L support M.2 PCIe gen 3 up to 4 lanes depending on the key. See Developer Zone for datasheets.

More lanes give you higher PCIe bandwidth that can be the bottleneck e.g. for very high FPS when running multiple cameras, switching models in complex pipelines, running large model with multiple contexts. Minimum is one lane.

Hailo-8 modules are available with different keys (M, B+M and A+E).

We and our customers use the Hailo-8 M.2 modules in a wide range of x86 and Arm based systems.

I do not expect issues with motherboards with multiple M.2 slots. Maybe check the datasheet if a M.2 slot shares the PCIe lanes with a PCIe slot.

We also offer PCIe cards with multiple Hailo devices. From Hailo you can get PCIe cards with up to 4 Hailo-8 devices. For these the motherboard must support PCIe bifurcation *. Our partners like Lanner and MiTac offer PCIe cards with up to 8 Hailo-8 devices. These have a PCIe switch which offers compatibility with more motherbaords because the switch takes care of the bifurcation.

  • Bifurcation support is critical dependent on the number of devices you will need different options e.g. (4x 4x 4x 4x) supports 4 devices on a PCIe (16x) slot.

You also should investigate the heat solution. The PCIe cards come with a heatsink. For the M.2 module you will need to add this yourself if the motherboard does not come with M.2 heatsinks. You can use the Hailo Integration Tool to validate the heat solution.