Intel Cancels Low Cost Atom Broxton & SoFia SoCs

Intel has recently announced it would lay off 11% of its workforce, and has now decided to kill plans for Atom Broxton, successor of Intel Cherry Trail processor, as well as low cost SoFia smartphone SoCs. That’s not really surprising as Intel was reported to have very small margins, or even to subsidy, low cost Intel based smartphones, and mini PCs. Rockchip/Intel Sofia SoC has never been popular with only a handful of smartphones and tablets launched in the last year. Nevertheless, we’ve had it good with $70 Bay Trail TV sticks, and $85 Cherry Trail mini PCs, and Intel is still manufacturing and selling those parts. But in the future, it might not be possible to buy sub $100 mini PCs or tablets with the latest Intel processors, as the company is now focusing on higher margin processors with Intel Core M and Apollo Lake (succeeding Braswell). More details […]

Mini PCs and Cloudbooks Powered by Intel Apollo Lake Pentium and Celeron Processors, Successors of Braswell SoCs, are Expected in H2 2016

Intel released a presentation entitled “Design Considerations and Reference Designs for Entry, Value and Mainstream PCs” at IDF 2016 Shenzhen, explaining the company vision about low power laptops and mini PCs. At the core of those devices will be “Apollo Lake” Pentium and Celeron Processors with 6 to 10W TDP replacing Braswell processors with better CPU and graphics performance, lower power consumption, and low overall BoM cost. Beside mini PCs, the processors will also find their way into what Intel calls Cloudbooks, some sort of laptops with 2 to 4GB RAM, 32 to 64GB storage, no hard drive, and displays whose size ranges from 11.6″ to 14″. So it looks like Cloudbooks may be the new Netbooks, with better performance and larger displays. Cost savings on the mainboard are achieved thanks to the integration of many features (Signal Processor, SD Card bridge chip, Spead Spectrum Clock…), low power consumption leading […]

Intel Compute Stick STK2mv64CC Powered by Core m5-6Y57 vPro Processor is Up for Pre-order for $485

Intel announced five new Computer Sticks at the beginning of the year, and so far 4 have been launched, and the Intel Core m3 have been benchmarked showing about to double the performance compared to the Cherry Trail versions, but the most powerful model based on Core m5 had yet to be launched. The news is that if you have some spare cash, you can now pre-order Intel Compute Stick STK2mv64CC based on Core m5-6Y57 vPro processor for $485 on Amazon US with shipping scheduled for May 12, 2016. That’s quite a steep price, so let’s see what you’d get for $500: SoC – Intel Core m5-6Y57 vPro dual core/four thread processor @ 1.1 GHz/2.8GHz with Intel HD Graphics 515 @ 300MHz/900Mhz (4.5 W TDP, configurable to 3.5W and 7W) System Memory – 4 GB DDR3L @ 1833MHz dual channel memory Storage – 64 GB eMMC + micro SDXC v3.0 slot with […]

Intel Showcases Core m Compute Stick Prototype with RealSense Camera at IDF 2016 Shenzhen

Intel appears to be all-in with their Realsense technology at IDF 2016 Shenzhen, as together with RealSense Robotic Development Kit, the company is showcasing an Intel Core m “Skylake” TV Stick, based on similar hardware as STK2MV64CC Compute Stick with a Core m3 or m5 vPro processor, but adding a Realsense F200 3D depth camera and an array of microphones. The full specifications are not available, but we do know the stick also comes with one USB 3.0 ports, and a yellow USB 2.0 port which should be always-on, a micro USB port for power, and a micro HDMI port to connect the your TV. The stick is supposed to be placed on top of your TV so you’d then be able to control the user interface, play games, etc… using gestures, with potentially other applications made possible thanks to 3D depth sensing such as Windows Hello which allows you […]

Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit Features Atom x5 UP Board, Realsense R200 Depth Camera

An Intel Developer Forum is currently taking place in Shenzhen, China, which may explains why we have several Intel products announcements targeting developers such as the launch of Quark D2000 development board. Another product for makers and developers is Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit combining Raspberry Pi like UP Board powered by Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor with Intel RealSense camera (R200) in order to bring 3D / depth vision to robots. UP Board specifications have changed a little as the processor is now Z8350 instead of Z8300, and they now have a version with 4GB RAM used in the kit: SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8350 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz (Burst frequency: 1.92 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics System Memory –  4GB DDR3L-1600 Storage – 32 GB eMMC flash Video Output / Display – HDMI 1.4b, MIPI DSI/eDP interface Audio I/O – HDMI, I2S Connectivity – […]

Intel Launches $15 Quark D2000 Arduino Compatible Board

Intel introduces three new Quark Micro-controllers last year, and I already experimented with Intel System Studio tools, quite similar to the Arduino IDE, and designed for hardware such as Intel Quark D1000 Customer Reference Board. So far the company had not released any boards available to the general public, but this has now changed since they’ve launched the “Intel Quark Microcontroller Developer Kit D2000”. Intel Quark D2000 development board specifications: MCU – Intel Quark D2000 32-bit processor Intel Pentium x86-compatible without x87 FPU @ 32 MHz with 8 KB SRAM, 32 KB instruction flash, 8 KB OTP flash and 4 KB OTP data flash USB – 1x micro USB (JTAG) for power and programming/debugging Sensors – 6-axis Accelerometer / magnetometer with temperature sensor (Bosch Sensortec BCM150) Expansion options: Arduino Uno compatible SIL sockets (3.3V IO only) Booster pack compatible SIL headers (3.3V IO only) Misc – Reset and user buttons, jumpers, […]

Intel Core m3 Skylake Compute Stick Benchmarked, Tested with Ubuntu 16.04 and Chromium OS

Intel unveiled five new Compute Sticks for 2016, with two Cherry Trail models, and three Skylake Core M models namely STK2M3W64CC and STK2MV64CC based on Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor, as well as STK2MV64CC with a more powerful Core m5-6Y57 vPRO processor. Ian Morrison (Linuxium) managed to get an early sample of STK2M3W64CC running Windows 10 on 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, and posted some benchmarks, as well as results of his experimentations with Ubuntu and Chrome OS in the Intel section of G+ MINI PCs community and his own website. He started by running some standard benchmarks in Windows 10 including CrystalDiskMark (storage performance), Passmark8, and 3DMark, and while the storage performance is underwhelming, the processor is clearly and noticeably faster than Braswell, and Cherry Trail processors in terms of CPU and GPU performance based on comparisons with  Tronsmart Ara X5 (x5-Z8300), Kangaroo Mobile Desktop (x5-Z8500), Voyo V3 (x7-Z8700), and […]

Embedded Linux Conference 2016 and OpenIoT Summit 2016 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference 2016 and the OpenIoT summit 2016 will take place on April 4 – 6, 2016 in San Diego, California, and over 800 attended will meet including kernel & system developers, userspace developers, and product vendors. The Linux Foundation has recently published the schedule, so I’ve had a look at some of the talks, and designed my own virtual schedule to find out more the current development focus although I won’t attend. Monday April 4 10:40am – 11:30am – Linux Connectivity for IoT by Marcel Holtmann, Intel OTC There are many connectivity solutions that available for IoT. For example Bluetooth Low Energy, 802.15.4, Zigbee, OIC, Thread and others. This presentation will provide and overview of the existing technology and upcoming standard and how they tie into the Linux kernel and its ecosystem. 11:40 – 12:30 – BoF: kernelci.org: A Million Kernel Boots and Counting by Kevin Hilman, […]

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