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posted by martyb on Friday September 25 2020, @06:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the put-two-atoms-together-to-make-a-molecule dept.

Intel Launches 10nm Atom Embedded CPUs: Elkhart Lake Now Available

The embedded and edge markets for Intel have always been hidden away within its IoT business, however at the Investor Meeting last year it was highlighted as one of Intel's key growth areas. The requirements for businesses to enable automation and control, as well as apply machine learning or computer vision, have increased as new optimized algorithms and use cases enter the market, and this is the question that the new 10nm Atom Embedded CPUs are set to answer.

The new processors built with Tremont Atom cores will come as three series of processors: Pentium, Celeron, and Atom x6000E. These are all built with the same silicon die, offering up to four Atom cores with a 3.0 GHz turbo frequency, up to 850 MHz of Gen11 graphics (up to 32 EUs, three 4K60 displays), in TDPs ranging from 4.5 W to 12 W. All processors will support up to LPDDR4X-4267 or DDR4-3200. In-band ECC support is split - the Atom x6000E parts have it, but the Pentium and Celerons do not.

Some of the lineup will include a single ARM Cortex-M7 companion core:

According to Intel, the Atom x6000E family is its first product line to specifically target Internet of Things applications. This is not entirely true, considering that Atom SoCs such as Bay Trail E3800 and Apollo Lake E3900 have targeted IoT duty since the IoT term was invented. IoT was also the main focus of Intel's discontinued line of super low-power Quark processors.

Nevertheless, Intel has added a host of embedded-focused features starting with an Intel Programmable Services Engine (Intel PSE) built around a real-time Arm Cortex-M7 companion core. Intel PSE hosts new functions like remote, network proxy, embedded controller, and sensor hub. The Cortex-M7 is designed to run the open source, Intel-derived Zephyr RTOS.


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 25 2020, @11:30PM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday September 25 2020, @11:30PM (#1056988) Homepage
    https://www.extremetech.com/computing/182790-amds-next-big-gamble-arm-and-x86-cores-working-side-by-side-on-the-same-chip

    Datestamp: 2014

    I was sure there was another example predating that by perhaps even over a decade, but I can't find it now - maybe it was merely planned or hypothesised, but never became a reality. (Intel stole DEC's rights to the StrongARM which became their XScale ARM-based chips in 1997, I'm sure an AMP design was mooted soon thereafter.)
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:29PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:29PM (#1057254) Journal

      The Cortex-M7 in Elkhart Lake is intended to support real-time operating systems, not do any serious computation.

      The article you linked doesn't seem to have any proof that AMD seriously considered putting x86 and ARM cores together. And of course, AMD ended up completely shelving ARM-based K12 Opterons in favor of focusing on Zen x86 CPUs, which has proven to be a wildly successful move.

      Intel is now pairing "big" x86 cores with small x86 Atom cores in designs like Lakefield [anandtech.com] and next year's Alder Lake [anandtech.com].

      AMD could presumably do something similar (remember Bobcat/Jaguar/Puma [wikipedia.org]), but power efficiency and die area improvements on the TSMC "7nm" node have allowed it to comfortably fit 8 "big" cores in a 15W TDP (the original plan was to put just 6 cores in Renoir). One of the cores can clock higher than the others, dynamically, and there is your big/small. Further major nodes ("3nm", "2nm") could allow AMD to put 16 or more big cores in a ~150-200mm2 die area and 15W TDP, if they want to.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Friday September 25 2020, @11:35PM (1 child)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Friday September 25 2020, @11:35PM (#1056991)

    I've been retired for 10 years now, but last time I looked into embedded CPUs I could choose from SH-4, MIPS, ARM, some shitty thing from Intel, and others I've forgotten.

    Considering Intel's recent hardware security issues, including their management machine, why would I choose this chip over anything else on the market? Not kidding, between the performance in this space, and the security issue in their main product line, why would I possibly choose Intel?

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:59AM

      by toddestan (4982) on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:59AM (#1057130)

      If I had to guess, a huge part of the market will go to people also embedding Windows and therefore need x86. They might also do well if you need something fast and cheap, and power usage isn't a big concern. Though that's not a given as some of the Atom chips have had pretty miserable performance while still managing to consume a lot of power.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:17AM (#1057132)

    Just passing through - looks like you could do with a few more dick jokes in here. Now ya got one!

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