Intel has apparently ended efforts to drive its x86 architecture into microcontroller-class chips and end nodes on the Internet of Things. Analysts generally applauded the move, although they noted it reflects in part on a market for wearables that has not emerged as fast as predicted.

Multiple reports said Intel has ended sales of Currie and other IoT boards using its Quark processors. However, the company did not directly respond to questions about Quark, a stripped down x86 chip CEO Brian Krzanich announced in his first keynote at the company’s annual developer conference.

As recently as last August, Intel presented a paper describing its D2000, a 32-bit x86 processor that consumed as little as 35 milliwatts in active mode. At the time the engineer describing the device at Hot Chips said Intel had plans “to scale [Quark] from MCUs to right below the Atom X1000 for Linux with lots of implementation options in cores and SoCs.”

At one time, Intel fielded as many as three Quark chips — the SE, D2000 and D1000. All were spins of the original synthesized Pentium-class core Krzanich announced in 2013 as a 32nm part, one-fifth the size and one-tenth the power of Intel’s Atom core.

Intel rolled out several IoT boards using Quark chips, including several compatible with Arduino starting in October 2013.

“IoT remains an important growth business for Intel and we are committed to IoT market segments that access, analyze and share data. These include retail, industrial, automotive and video, which will drive billions of connected devices,” the spokesman said, suggesting the company will focus on Atom-based gateways as its new low end.

“Intel tried to take the x86 everywhere but the MCU business is not amenable to Intel’s business model of high margins and volumes and they had no second sources for the modules,”

Krewell and others said Quark may continue as a block in future SoCs, but it is not likely to appear as a standalone chip. Lack of influence over the software stack in IoT end nodes shouldn’t have a big impact for Intel, said Linley Gwennap, principal of market watcher The Linley Group.

In the past weeks we explored how to make a gsm-controlled star light, a touch-screen controlled marionette, and how to learn more about Linux on Intel Galileo Gen 2.

https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/where-to-buy.html#galileo

This article presents a comparison of open source hardwares, which is the Intel Galileo and Raspberry Pi development boards. It describes the different applications of the boards, the cost, performance, as well as its major differences such as processors and on-board features, peripherals and utilities, and its general-purpose I/O’s.

The Intel Galileo and the Raspberry Pi (RPi) are both do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics hardware development boards featuring embedded processors. RPi is loosely labelled as open source in this article, but it does not qualify as open source hardware per the strictest standards, since some of the chips on the board are notoriously difficult to get support for, rendering deep control impossible and cobbling creativity in the process. Realistically speaking, the highest levels of openness for hardware would include an open core, and yet many products claim to be open source hardware that go up to, but do not include, total control of the processor. Additionally, although RPi is a wonderful educational and media processing tool, RPi cannot be reproduced freely, as there is a copyright on the RPi schematics. Manufacture of the board is limited to a couple of licensees.

It’s not really fair to compare RPi to Galileo, since the choice should be based upon the goal of the project. Here we detail similarities and differences so that decisions can be made indirectly prior to purchase.

Galileo has a new, memory-rich and powerful processor (Quark) and is compatible with existing Arduino open source hardware (OSHW)

OSHW began in academia. OSHW was developed as a hopeful effort to provide a simple means for education in embedded hardware, where none (at least not low cost, nor as well-documented) had existed before, post-Heath Kit. OSHW has become better known, more widely dispersed, and is rapidly growing since it became more modular (much like chunks of code in Open Source Software) via singular manufacturing entities such as Arduino. Not only are sources openly accessible, but hardware is ready-made and pieces can be simply bolted together. Detailed expertise in technology is not required for implementation.

The Galileo board sports a 400MHz Pentium-class System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called “Quark,” that was made by Intel cooperatively with Arduino. (Galileo is compatible with existing Arduino shields that fit the Arduino Uno R3.) RPi is normally clocked at 700MHz, but is easily overclocked

Intel XDK IoT Edition provides an IDE that enables you to use JavaScript with Node.js to build Internet of Things (IoT) projects that target specific Intel boards and interact with Arduino shields and modules.

This project is based on the same Galileo boards Intel has used to support some high-altitude balloon launches — except this is an extremely simple, practical application. Open source? You bet! And Dan says the sensors and other parts are all off-the-shelf items anyone can buy.

The list of official Arduino boards continues to grow, and, continuing with the famous-Italian-person trend, now includes the Galileo. The Galileo is Intel’s toe-dip into the Arduino waters. It features their Quark SoC X1000 – a 32-bit, x86 system-on-a-chip that can run at up to 400MHz with 512 kB of built-in SRAM.

I loaded that onto a µSD card (also including the Galileo’s SD-bootable “bigger” Linux image, required for Python), and proceeded to the next task.

To display the email count (and retain the Arduino-y-ness of the Galileo) I used an OpenSegment Shield, controlled over SPI. No modifications, just plop it right on top of the Galileo. A lot of the Arduino code here might look familiar, especially if you’ve used the SPI, SD, or Wi-Fi libraries, which all work swimmingly with the Galileo.

One of the key, uniquely-Galilean functions this code incorporates is the system() function, which can issue requests to the Linux kernel. With the below line of code, we can run a Python script from the comfy confines of Arduino:

system(“python /media/realroot/pyMail.py > /media/realroot/emails”);

The output of the script is routed to a file named “emails.” Then we can use the Arduino SD library to read the “emails” file, which simply contains the number of unread emails there are. After a bit of parsing, and SPI-ing, we’ve got an unread email count printed to the OpenSegment Shield!

Life is pretty sweet on the Arduino half of the Galileo. Setup is about as easy as any other Arduino board, most shields should be supported (though watch out for that 3.3V operating voltage), and a lot of sketches can be ported directly over to a Galileo. Plus, there’s a ton of SRAM; you can include memory-hungry libraries and mess with strings and large buffers with little worry of exhausting your memory supply.

Announced at the beginning of this year, Intel’s Edison is the chipmakers latest foray into the world of low power, high performance computing. Originally envisioned to be an x86 computer stuffed into an SD card form factor, this tiny platform for wearables, consumer electronic designers, and the Internet of Things has apparently been redesigned a few times over the last few months. Now, Intel has finally unleashed it to the world. It’s still tiny, it’s still based on the x86 architecture, and it’s turning out to be a very interesting platform.

The key feature of the Edison is, of course, the Intel CPU. It’s a 22nm SoC with dual cores running at 500 MHz. Unlike so many other IoT and micro-sized devices out there, the chip in this device, an Atom Z34XX, has an x86 architecture. Also on board is 4GB of eMMC Flash and 1 GB of DDR3. Also included in this tiny module is an Intel Quark microcontroller – the same as found in the Intel Galileo – running at 100 MHz. The best part? Edison will retail for about $50. That’s a dual core x86 platform in a tiny footprint for just a few bucks more than a Raspberry Pi.

The Intel® Edison development platform is bringing down barriers in the world of wearables and IoT technology.

They’ve launched their Edison board, which features an x86 based SoC running at 100 MHz. The footprint measures 35.5mm x 25.0mm and offers a 70-pin connector to break out 40 pins for add-on hardware.

Intel is pushing to break into both wearable devices and household devices