Alif Semiconductor Launches $49 Edge AI Evaluation Boards

September 08, 2026
Alif Semiconductor introduced the SK-B1 and SK-E1C StartKit evaluation boards for its Balletto and Ensemble microcontrollers. Each board combines an Arm Cortex-M55 CPU with an Ethos-U55 neural processing unit for local AI inference.

Alif Semiconductor introduced in a press release the SK-B1 and SK-E1C StartKit evaluation boards for its Balletto and Ensemble microcontrollers. The compact boards cost $49 each and support hardware accelerated AI inference on battery powered devices.

Each board includes a 160 MHz Arm Cortex-M55 CPU with Helium vector processing, an Ethos-U55 neural processing unit, and 2 MB of SRAM and MRAM. Expansion options include 44 pin headers, Arduino R3 shields, and MikroE Click add ons.

The boards also provide Micro USB Type B data connectivity, USB C power, a three color LED, current sensing jumpers, and a SEGGER J-Link debugger. The SK-B1 adds a tuned chip antenna and an RF filter network.

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