While I’m not sure many of my readers are using them, Intel introduced several IoT development kits and modules over the years, with products like Intel Galileo, followed by Galileo 2, Edison module development board all based on Quark processors, and more recently Intel Joule modules powered by Intel Atom T550x / T570x processors.
The three boards / modules and corresponding modules will soon be no more, as Intel issues three end-of-life (EOL) notices for:
- Intel Galileo Board, and Intel Galileo Gen2 Board Products – PDF
- Select Intel Edison Compute Module, Intel Edison Breakout Board, Intel Edison Kit for Arduino, and Intel Edison Breakout Board Kit Products – PDF
- Intel Joule 570x Compute Module, Intel Joule 550x Compute Module, Intel Joule 570x Developer Kit and, Intel Joule 550x Developer Kit Products – PDF
All three follow the same “forecasted key milestones”:
- June 16, 2017 – Product Discontinuance Program Support Begins
- July 16, 2017 – Product Discontinuance Demand To Local Intel Representative
- September 16, 2017 – Last Product Discontinuance Order Date
- September 16, 2017 – Orders are Non-Cancelable and Non-Returnable After
- December 16, 2017 – Last Product Discontinuance Shipment Date
EOL notices are normal, and potentially understandable for Galileo and Edison products announced in 2013 and 2014, but Intel Joule modules were just announced last August, so they may not have been used any products considering development time, and I can’t even find Atom T5500/550X or T5700/570x on Intel Ark website. So it does not look good for Intel’s IoT initiatives. Note that some Edison modules will be sold in 2018, so not all SKUs are discontinued.
Via Hardware.info. Thanks to Sander for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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no surprise, Intel is Just playing IoT, not doing business
Hardly a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for some time with their Quark products.
Their support even for HDKs has been a complete joke, so it’s clear that Intel don’t care about this product line anymore. They announced several times replacements for the Quark X1000, but never shipped them and just cancelled them quietly.
I don’t know why Intel is even trying to be in IoT, it’s just a waste of money for them. Their designs are outdated and energy inefficient compared to what ARM offers.
Maybe is time to buy some sales.
Good riddance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quark#Segfault_bug
“Intel Quark SoC X1000 contains a bug #71538[11] that “under specific circumstances” results in crash, known in the industry as a segfault. The workaround implemented by Intel is to omit LOCK instructions in the compiled code.[12] While Yocto Linux based embedded systems incorporate this workaround, general purpose Linux distributions such as Debian are deeply affected by the bug. Such a workaround is not easy to implement on multithreading systems as they require LOCK instruction to function properly.[13]”
@zoobab
Ahh, that’s a heck of an errata. I’m not quite sure they qualify for it but they’re close to B.A.D.–Broken As Designed.
I’m stealing that line. It’s **EPIC**.
For me, it’s like I expressed on G+…
“They’re pricey, underpowered for the price points they’re at. As an example…
Galileo Gen 2:
X1000 Quark CPU
256 MB DDR3, 512 kb embedded SRAM, 8 MB NOR Flash, and 8 kb EEPROM standard on the board, plus support for microSD card up to 32 GB
It’s main selling points is that it’s X86 and it’s got a mini PCIe card slot. Past that, what do you get for your $70?
Something with a thermal profile higher than you can legitimately use as a wearable.
Something that gets SLEDGEHAMMERED by a Beaglebone Black or a Raspberry PI 2 in overall compute performance while being 3 times hotter.
Something that you have to screw with UEFI on.
Their other offerings have been similar…heh…embarrassments.
Worse, they’ve been made for a domain where you can get the right muscle for a third the price- or something with a LOT more muscle for slightly more or less money, depending on what form factor you’re willing to work with. If you’re “okay” with Tensilica LX6 cores, you can get a DUAL CORE config with “enough” RAM for most IoT things for $6 a module for goodness sakes… And if you want more than that…$5 buys you a board with double the RAM, that STILL sledgehammers the CPU in question, in exchange for a Pi Hat interface…and you can get the same module with WiFi for $10.
Why would you even BUY one of those silly things unless you’re an Intel fan? Seriously?”
I never got bit by that Quark 1000 Errata- because it was duff hardware out of BOX, really. There’s nothing compelling about it except that it runs X86 software. Because of that Errata…it’s so full of fail I’d call it laughable if it weren’t so tragic- because you just lost the ONE advantage this had over any ARM or MIPS embedded board with it.
Intel Edison will continue to be supplied well into 2019. Rest are going down the drain.
With respect to Edison the products effected are only select skus (like breakout boards, certain edison module SKUs) and rest Intel® Edison Compute Module will continue to be in supply.
Yeouch. I bought several Edisons for evaluation because they had the right specs for our needs, so I am really glad we decided not to use them.
Ugh Intel. You really known how to get people to loose faith in you.
I looked carefully at the documentation and BSP for these Intel boards before deciding what to do. That’s as far as I got – what a mess. Either Intel doesn’t understand how to support a product intended for user development, or they do understand but their heart just wasn’t in it. Or maybe like a four-year-old, they just got bored.
very predictable – intel was not able to make anything usable for ages. it is just big chip fabric.