Gentlemen, Size Matters...

Intel 400MHz Quark Processor

Today at CES 2014, company CEO Brian Krzanich wants to introduce you to Edison, a miniature computer based on the same technology condensed into the form factor of an SD card. The tiny computer is built on the company's 22nm transistor technology, runs Linux and has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth modules. What's more, the tiny machine can connect to its own app store.

Inside Edison, the 400MHz Quark processor is combined with WiFi and Bluetooth low-energy wireless interfaces for connectivity, and also has built-in LPDDR2 memory and flash storage. Because the Quark chip is x86-based, it can support Linux and other operating systems to run sophisticated high-level applications, Intel claimed.

Edison, which is set to be available this summer, will be compatible with developer tools used by the 'maker' community, meaning that it should be relatively quick and simple to build software to run on the device.

Intel intends Edison to enable rapid innovation and product development by a range of inventors, entrepreneurs and product designers, according to chief executive Brian Krzanich.

"Wearable’s are not everywhere today because they aren't yet solving real problems and they aren't yet integrated with our lifestyles. We're focused on addressing this engineering innovation challenge. Our goal is, if something computes and connects, it does it best with Intel inside," he said.

Autodesk said it was adding support for Edison to its 123D Circuits, an online circuit design and development tool. The move follows Intel's launch of a single-board computer based on Quark technology, called Galileo.

Intel offered few details on its upcoming Quark, but said it will be one-fifth the size and will consume one-tenth the power of the new “Silvermont” Atom processors announced in May and just now beginning to ship in products. Quark’s applications will include wearables, but Intel also sees a big market in low-power, wireless-enabled “Internet of Things” devices in the industrial, energy, and transportation segments.

ARM chip on a penny

Sample form-factor reference boards based on the first Quark processor are due in the fourth quarter, which would suggest the potential for new products in 2014. Krzanich did not mention OS support, but the Atom comparison combined with the Quark’s Pentium ISA compatibility suggest it will run advanced OSes such as Linux. Currently ARM-based SoCs provide full Linux compatibility while consuming significantly less power than Intel’s Atom SoCs, but the Quark would appear to enable Intel to compete head-to-head — or better — with ARM.

What's striking about Quark, however, is the way that Intel is selling it. ARM is extremely flexible.

The ARM company itself doesn't make any processors; it just sells instruction sets and processor designs. Third parties can license these and customize them as they see fit. Instruction set licensees can design the entire chip themselves; licensees of ARM's off-the-shelf designs can use them as-is or customize them in various ways. The designs can be tweaked to improve performance or power usage, and they can have other pieces integrated, such as custom blocks for mobile networking, telephony, graphics, and so on.

The Quark development platform will provide “a standard fabric you can attach your IP to,” Krzanich was quoted as saying by ZDNet. As usual, Intel does not plan to license the architecture, but it appears to be opening it up to more customization. “If you have sensors, algorithms, accelerators you can do that and get it manufactured with Intel,” the CEO was quoted as saying.

Naturally, the device is aimed at developers, Krzanich says, who he hopes will use it to build the next generation of wearable and connected devices. Even so, Intel is leading by example, and showed a small collection of "Nursery 2.0" products using embedded Edison chips: a toy frog that reports an infant's vitals to a parent via an LED coffee cup, for example, and a milk warmer that starts heating when another connected item (the frog, again) hears the baby cry.

Still, even Intel knows that developers need more than a good example to motivate them and nothing gets the creative juices flowing quite like the promise of an award. To that end, the company has announced the "Make it Wearable" competition, and says it will be offering up to $1.3 million in prizes for developers churning out wearable tech. The full details of the contest weren't revealed at the show, but Krzanich did say that first prize would walk away with a cool $500,000. Oh, and if you're eyeballing Edison for your award-winning idea? It'll be available sometime in mid-2014.

Source(s):

• http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2014/01/07/whats-cool-ces-2014-security-devices/4351971/
• http://ark.intel.com/products/79084/Intel-Quark-SoC-X1000-16K-Cache-400-MHz
• http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2321398/ces-intel-unveils-edison-a-quark-based-computer-the-size-of-an-sd-card

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 21 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502