Intel wants to put an Atom in your phone- and car too!

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 06:58

Opinion and Analysis

“With the addition of these new products, we can bring the benefits of Intel processors to new applications, devices and customers who develop products used in unconstrained thermal environments with low-power in mind,” said Doug Davis, vice president, Digital Enterprise Group and general manager, Embedded and Communications Group, Intel.

“Meeting the needs of embedded environments and new market segments will play a large role in delivering the connectivity and functionality necessary as the number of devices connecting to the embedded Internet is expected to grow to an estimated 15 billion devices by 2015,” Davis added, citing a January report by IDC’s John Gantz titled “The Embedded Internet: Methodology and Findings.”
 
Intel’s 30-year-old embedded computing division focuses on machines, devices and equipment that have computing and Internet capabilities but are not traditional PCs, laptops or servers.  

“Intel is well known for innovation and we’re excited to see them introducing new low-power consumption Intel Atom processors targeted for in-vehicle systems,” said Greg Baribault, director of product management for the Automotive Business Unit at Microsoft.

“Intel Atom processors and the Microsoft Auto software platform will provide scalability for the new era of advanced in-vehicle solutions.”

In addition to in-car applications, the Intel Atom Z5xx processor series also targets an emerging category of Internet-based communications devices Intel calls “media phones” which provide communications services over IP and easy, one-touch access to lifestyle applications such as e-mail, text messaging, weather information, YouTube, horoscopes and digital photo albums.

To help accelerate this emerging device category, Intel today introduced an Intel Media Phone Reference Design designed to facilitate development of hardware solutions to market. The hardware development platform includes schematics and validated software stacks.