Intel Elkhart Lake Processors To Succeed Gemini Lake Processors in 2020

Intel Elkhart Lake Tablet

Intel Gemini Lake processors were highly anticipated as soon as they were first reported in September 2016, and even more so before launch since Gemini Lake products promised to be about as expensive as their older Apollo Lake counterparts. Interest somewhat fizzled despite a clear performance advantage over the previous generation, as prices did not match initial expectations, likely due to a shortage of Intel cheaper processors. In recent weeks, we started to read about Intel Elkhart Lake processors that are meant to be the successors of Gemini Lake processors, based on Tremont microarchitecture, and featuring Intel “i915” Gen11 graphics. The new processor should be manufactured using a 10nm process, but it’s still unclear whether some Elkhart Lake processors will be part of Intel Foveros which combines a fast Sunny Cove core with several Atom class Tremont cores. That’s about all we know from the technical side so far. A […]

Intel Phases Out Quark SoCs and Microcontrollers

Intel Quark Discontinued

I had completely forgotten about Intel Quark SoCs and MCUs found in development kits and modules such as the Arduino 101 board or Intel Curie module. Last time I heard about those chips, Intel had just discontinued several boards including the two aforementioned products, and I just assumed the Quark chips had quietly reached end-of-life as well. But actually those will still be available for a bit longer, with Intel having just issued a product change notification for the discontinuance & end of life of the following parts: Intel Quark SoC X1020D Intel Quark SoC X1000 Intel Quark SoC X1010 Intel Quark SoC X1021D Intel Quark SoC X1001 Intel Quark SoC X1011 Intel Quark SoC X1020 Intel Quark SoC X1021 Intel Quark Microcontroller D1000 Intel Quark Microcontroller D2000 Intel Quark SE C1000 Microcontroller Intel Quark Microcontroller D2000 Intel Quark SE C1000 Microcontroller In case you have a product based one […]

Intel RealSense Tracking Camera T265 is Designed for Autonomous Devices

Intel RealSense Tracking Camera T265

Intel has just launched another smart camera with RealSense Tracking Camera T265 powered by the company’s Myriad 2 VPU (Vision Processing Unit) also found in the first Neural Compute Stick, and designed for autonomous robots, drones, and augmented/virtual reality applications. The T265 camera is said to use proprietary visual inertial odometry simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) technology “delivering high-performance guidance and navigation”. Intel RealSense tracking camera T265 hardware specifications: VPU – Intel Movidius Myriad 2 vision processing unit with 12 VLIW 128-bit vector SHAVE processors optimized to run V‑SLAM at low power Cameras – 2x Omnivision OV9282 high-speed image sensors with Fisheye lenses for a combined 163±5° FOV; infrared cut filter Sensor – Bosch BMI055 6-axis IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) to measure rotation and acceleration of the device USB – 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Micro B port to transfer pose data, or pose + image data. Dimensions – 108 x 24.5 x 12.5 mm; 2x […]

Intel Project Athena Defines Guidelines for Always-On 5G Laptops

Intel Project Athena

Arm, Qualcomm and their partners first introduced always-on always-connected mobile PCs running Windows 10 in 2017 with over 20 hours of battery life and LTE connectivity. The first models delivered on their battery life promise, but they were expensive while delivering underwhelming performance, but the upcoming Snapdragon 8cx processor should address performance concerns. Those type of laptops are still a niche market, and so far Intel and their partners have not delivered similar type of laptops with long battery life, cellular connectivity, and always-on capabilities. That’s where Intel’s Project Athena innovation program comes in. The program that defines a new class of advanced laptops running either Windows or Chrome OS operating systems, offering long battery life, 5G connectivity, artificial intelligence, and consistently powered on. They may not target the 20 hours of battery life like on Arm platform, but the part of the infographic above reads “worry-free day of battery […]

Amazon Echo Look Camera Goes for $50 with Intel Atom x5, RealSense Camera SR300

Echo Look

Amazon Echo Look is a smart camera with Alexa Assistant that was launched about 2 years ago for $200, and designed to help you decide if your outfit is a good match, beside taking photo and video selfies with voice commands. Sales may not have matched Amazon expectations (unsurprisingly), and the product is now offered for just $49.99. What may be interesting for CNX Software readers is that Echo Look appears to be a consumer version of AWS DeepLens deep learning video camera for developers ($249), plus some cost savings as well, so there may be some hacking potential here. A teardown video – embedded below – reveals some interesting specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8350 quad core Cherry Trail processor @ up to 1.44 GHz System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 16 Mbit SPI flash Camera – Intel RealSense SR300 depth sensing camera + […]

Intel Unveils Foveros “big.SMALL” Hybrid x86 Processor, Roadmap for Atom Processors

Intel Foveros Hybrid Processor-Development-Board

Once upon a time Intel manufactured mobile processors for smartphones and tablets, but they eventually gave up as their solutions failed to gain traction. However, it looks like they may be back, as one customers required them to developer a chip with higher performance than Atom processors combined with a 2 mW standby power state. The chip was developed using “Foveros” 3D stacking technology was showcased at Intel’s Architecture Day 2018, but before going into further details, let’s have a look at Atom and Core processors roadmap to 2023 unveiled at the event. First, Intel will have developed three new Atom micro-architectures going into 2023. As we’ve seen previously, Tremont will succeed Goldmont Plus microarchitecture found in Gemini Lake and Denverton processors, and improve single-threaded performance, network server performance, and battery life starting in 2019. Around 2021, Gracemont will be launched with again higher single-thread performance and frequency, as well […]

Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 with Myriad X VPU Finally Announced

Intel Neural Compute Stick 2

Intel Neural Compute Stick was first introduced in early 2017 as a USB compute that allows AI inference at the edge with low power consumption. The stick is based on Myriad Movidius 2 VPU (Vision Processing Unit), and was found to significantly improve inference performance on Raspberry Pi 3 board over a proprietary GPU accelerated solution. However, a little later last year, Intel also announced Movidius Myriad X VPU with claims of up to 10 times DNN performance over Myriad 2 VPU. But so far, we would only see solutions launched with the latter, and it looks like Intel is finally ready to bring Myriad X VPU to the market with the company announcing Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 at Intel’s artificial intelligence (AI) developer conference in Beijing taking place on November 14 and 15. Intel NCS 2 (Neural Compute Stick 2) specifications: Processor – Intel Movidius Myriad X Vision Processing […]

Intel RealSense D435i Stereo Depth Camera Supports 6 Degrees of Freedom Tracking

RealSense D435i Camera

First unveiled in CES 2014, Intel RealSense Technology was introduced for perceptual computing application with hardware such as 3D sensing cameras, as well Nuance Dragon Assistant voice technology. Since then the company release various 3D sensing camera models and kits such as Realsense R200 Depth Camera robotics development kit, and just announced the new RealSense D435i stereo depth camera which adds 6 DoF (Degrees of Freedom) tracking over D435 model thanks to an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Intel RealSense Depth Camera D435i key features and specifications: Intel RealSense Vision Processor D4 – Purpose-built ASIC designed to deliver stereo depth data at up to 90fps at VGA resolutions or up to 1280×720 resolution at 30fps Intel RealSense module D430 – Depth camera imaging sub-system featuring a wide field of view (91.2 horizontal x 65.5 degrees vertical), global shutter stereo image sensors and an IR projector Depth Technology – Active IR stereo […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC