This repository contains User Mode Driver for Intel® NPU device.
Intel® NPU device is an AI inference accelerator integrated with Intel client CPUs, starting from Intel® Core™ Ultra generation of CPUs (formerly known as Meteor Lake). It enables energy-efficient execution of artificial neural network tasks.
To make sure that your system has an NPU available, please follow the steps.
The full device name is Neural Processing Unit, but the Linux kernel driver uses the older name - Versatile Processing Unit (VPU).
The release page contains the binaries and supported component versions.
──[User─space]──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
┌──────────────────────────(optional)─┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ User Mode Driver tests │ │ OpenVINO │
│ │ │ │
│ intel-validation-npu │ │ openvino_toolkit │
│ (vpu-umd-test) │ │ │
│ │ │ │
└──────────────────▲──────────────────┘ └────────────────────▲───────────────────┘
╚════════════════════╦══════════════════════╝
............................................║..............................................
┌───────────────────────────────────────▼──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ oneAPI Level-Zero level-zero │
│ (libze_loader.so) │
│ │
└───────────────────────────────────────▲──────────────────────────────────────────┘
╔════════════════════╝
┌──────────────────▼──────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ User Mode Driver │ │ NPU compiler │
│ │ │ │
│ intel-level-zero-npu ◀═══▶ intel-driver-compiler-npu │
│ (libze_intel_vpu.so) │ │ (libvpux_driver_compiler.so) │
│ │ │ │
└──────────────────▲──────────────────┘ └────────────────────────────────────────┘
╚════════════════════╗
──[Kernel─space]────────────────────────────║───────────────────────────────────────────────
┌───────────────────▼─────────────────────┐
│ Kernel Mode Driver │
│ intel-npu-driver │
│ (intel_vpu.ko) │
│ │
└───────────────────▲─────────────────────┘
──[Device]──────────────────────────────────║──────────────────────────────────────────────
┌───────────────────▼─────────────────────┐
│ Firmware │
│ intel-fw-npu │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Install the required dependencies in Ubuntu:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential git git-lfs cmake libudev-dev libboost-all-dev
Commands to build the driver:
cd linux-npu-driver
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -B build -S .
cmake --build build --parallel $(nproc)
# set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to lib to make driver visible for loader
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/build/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# or install the driver in the system
cmake --install build
The driver has a target in compiler/vpux_compiler.cmake to build
Compiler-in-Driver component from NPU plugin
repository.
OpenVINO runtime is required by compiler. About the dependencies for building OpenVINO, please check the OpenVINO build document.
To build a compiler from the driver repository the ENABLE_VPUX_COMPILER_BUILD flag has to be set:
cd linux-npu-driver
cmake -B build -S . -DENABLE_VPUX_COMPILER_BUILD=ON
cmake --build build --parallel $(nproc)
# set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to lib to make driver visible for loader
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/build/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# or install the driver in the system
cmake --install build
The compiler binary libvpux_driver_compiler.so can be found in build/lib/.
The validation/umd-test directory contains vpu-umd-test application with functional tests.
This application allows to configure test content using YAML configuration file.
More information can be found in validation/umd-test/configs.
The binary vpu-umd-test is located in the build folder, ex. build/bin/
Command line:
./vpu-umd-test --config=basic.yaml
Non-root access to the NPU device
To access the NPU device, the user must be in the "render" or "video" group. A group depends on system configuration:
# check user groups
groups
# add user to the "render" group
sudo usermod -a -G render <user-name>
# log out and log in to apply the new group
The patch for systemd to set the "render" group for accel subsystem has been merged, but might not be available in your Linux distribution. See systemd change.
If setting the "render" group does not resolve the non-root access issue, this must be done by an administrator manually:
# check device permissions
ls -l /dev/accel/
# change group for accel device
sudo chown root:render /dev/accel/accel0
# allow to read/write from device for group
sudo chmod g+rw /dev/accel/accel0
# check final permissions
$ ls -lah /dev/accel/accel0
crw-rw---- 1 root render 261, 0 Jan 31 15:58 /dev/accel/accel0
Compilation problem due to lack of memory
The compilation may fail due to memory shortage. The recommendation is to use the Ninja generator instead of Unix Makefiles. If it does not help, please file a new issue.
# install Ninja
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ninja-build
# remove the old build and create a new one
rm build -rf
cmake -B build -S . -G Ninja
Enable the intel_vpu module in the kernel config for compilation
In the Kernel Menu Configuration from Device Driver select Compute Acceleration Framework
and set "modularize" for Intel NPU (Neural Processing Unit).
Finding the intel_vpu kernel module in the system
# check if the intel_vpu exists is in the system
modinfo intel_vpu
# check if the intel_vpu is loaded in the kernel
lsmod | grep intel_vpu
# if the previous command nothing produced, load the intel_vpu
sudo modprobe intel_vpu
# verify that the intel_vpu has been loaded successfully
sudo dmesg | tail -n 20
Enable driver log using an environment variable
Valid logging levels are ERROR, WARNING, INFO, VERBOSE.
Seting the logging level using the ZE_INTEL_NPU_LOGLEVEL environment variable:
export ZE_INTEL_NPU_LOGLEVEL=<logging_level>
Command to clear an exported value:
unset ZE_INTEL_NPU_LOGLEVEL
Intel® NPU driver is distributed under the MIT License.
You may obtain a copy of the license at: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT