One of the key benefits of Intel® architecture (IA) is its scalable performance . With processors ranging from low-power parts to high-end, multi-core beasts, IA covers a wide span of cost, power, and performance levels. This scalability provides a number of important benefits. First and foremost, scalability gives developers a reliable upgrade path . You can add features by moving to higher-performance parts, or you can cost-optimize with lower-performance parts.  What’s more...Read More

With the arrival of the Intel® Atom™ processor N2000 and D2000 series (formerly codenamed “Cedar Trail”), developers have an intriguing new option for high-performance, low-power designs. The new parts are the first Intel® Atom™ processors to be fabricated in a 32 nm process, enabling significant improvements in power consumption along with the addition of major new features. Most notably, the graphics engine has been heavily upgraded, giving the new processo...Read More

Energy efficiency has become a key design requirement across a broad range of embedded markets – whether to stretch battery life in portable devices, to enable fanless designs in harsh environments, or to lower costs in communications infrastructure, to name just a few examples. At the same time, these markets are looking for ever-greater performance and features. To meet these conflicting requirements, OEMs need a hardware platform that combines low power with high performance.
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Last week I surveyed PC/104 standards and reviewed the pros and cons of the various standards.  This week I’ll look at how PC/104 compares against another small form factor standard, COM Express*.   To get things started, let’s review a few basics about PC/104 and COM Express .  Both standards enable designers to build systems using commercial, off-the-shelf ( COTS ) boards and modules.  The key benefit of the COTS approach is that it reduces hardware des...Read More

The range of CPU performance afforded by Intel® Architecture (IA) processors has continued to grow and the Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series will further stretch the capabilities at the high end of the IA family. Members of the 5600 series integrate as many as 6 processing cores. Moreover the products support the Intel® QuickPath Technology that launched on prior Nehalem microarchitecture Xeon processors. The new processor also comes with new support ICs including the Intel...Read More