Intel reveals its vision for future

Intel held its annual “Developer Forum” last week, unveiling its vision on the future of computing. Intel aims to take part in every segment, from data centres to ultra-mobile devices including tablets, phones and wearables.

Chief executive officer Brian Krzanich, who took over in May, said all computing segments were undergoing exciting and even game-changing transitions. Intel will address each market segment, accelerating its progress in ultra-mobile devices with new products over the next year and beyond including a new family of lower-power products.

“Personal and connected. That’s a trend that’s been going on for 40-plus years in our industry. Devices have continually become more and more personal and connected. There’s been a shift from a CPU-based [central processing unit] architecture to an SoC, or a system-on-chip-based, architecture. We will go and put our leadership and our silicon and our technology into every segment of computing,” Krzanich said.

The segments include servers, personal computers, tablets, phones and beyond, as well as those that are still being developed such as wearables and the “Internet of Things”, defined by Wikipedia as “uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure”. These are emerging areas in which Intel hopes to take the lead.

“Innovation and industry transformation are happening more rapidly. With Intel’s strengths, we have the manufacturing-technology leadership and architectural tools in place to push further into lower-power regimes. We plan to shape and lead in all areas of computing,” Krzanich said.

 

Data centres and cloud

Intel says it is now in the process of re-architecting the data centre. Its goal is to enable a common, software-defined foundation for both data centres and cloud service providers that spans servers, networking, storage and security. 

To approach this market, it has the Intel Xeon processor family and a portfolio for data centres including the second-generation 64-bit Intel Atom C2000 family of SoC designs for micro-severs and cold storage platforms, code-named “Avoton”, as well as for entry networking platforms code-named “Rangeley”.

Also, the firm introduced the Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v2 family, formerly code-named “Ivy Bridge-EP”, to serve enterprise segments and telecommunications vendors. The new Xeon product family is based on Intel’s 22-nanometre processing technology.

Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of the data-centre and connected-systems group at Intel, said data traffic generated by connected mobile devices put additional pressure on networking infrastructure to be more agile and efficient and allow for much faster provisioning of services.

As mobility becomes more personal and personalised, Intel says its strategy is to help ensure its architecture offers the best experience across all devices, operating environments and price points. System manufacturers around the world are expected to announce hundreds of platforms based on the Intel Xeon Processor E5 family. 

The Xeon Processor E5-2600 v2 will be offered with 18 different parts that range in price from US$202 (Bt6,400) to $2,614 in quantities of 1,000. Additionally three single-socket Intel Xeon Processor E5-1600 parts will be offered for work stations, which range in price from $294 to $1,080.

Doug Fisher, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s software and services group, said a series of software tools, technologies and initiatives would help developers create cross-platform experiences.

“For example, Intel XDK is a new software tool that is part of the new Intel HTML5 development environment and helps developers create HTML5 apps that can be written once and run across devices and operating environments,” Fisher said.

Intel’s cloud-services platform address developers’ needs to cater to the growing enterprise and service-provider markets, and the firm offers a range of new software tools and capabilities across multiple operating environments, including Android, Chrome and Windows.

He added that Chromebooks were another example of Intel’s unique software strategy to support multiple operating environments that run best on Intel architecture, thereby increasing user choice. Chromebooks using Intel processors include Hewlett-Packard, Acer, ASUS and Toshiba units.

As more mobile devices connect to the Internet, there is a growing need to deliver applications and services for a rich user experience. To help developers monetise this opportunity, Intel cloud services provide capabilities that can be used to create apps and games aimed at both businesses and consumers.

 

PCs, tablets and two-in-one devices

Krzanich said that to continue its leadership in the PC market, Intel had launched a family of low-power SoCs code-named “Bay Trail”, based on a new low-power, high-performance micro-architecture called “Silvermont”.

It is set to serve tablets, two-in-one devices, and other mobile units for consumers and business users. By the fourth quarter of this year, there will be products from leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including AAVA, Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba available in the market. 

“By the end of this year, we’ll have over 60 systems in the market at price points as low as $400,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hermann Eul, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s mobile and communications group, said that with Bay Trail as the foundation, OEM partners were bringing a wide variety of designs at a range of prices to consumers, business users and information-technology managers.

The family of Bay Trial SoCs – including Bay Trail-T, Bay Trail-D and Bay Trail-M – provides a wide range of options for Intel’s customers by enabling one hardware configuration that supports both Windows 8 and Android, and offering broader choice of form factors at a range of price points for both if consumers and business users.

The product line under Bay Trail-T is the Intel Atom Z3000 Processor Series that is set to serve two-in-one devices and tablets both on Android and Windows 8. Tablets based on this latest Intel Atom SoC will be available at prices starting at $199.

Product lines under Bay Trail M are Intel Pentium N3510 and Intel Celeron N2910, N2810 and N2805 processors. This series will power a number of innovative two-in-one devices in addition to notebooks enabled with touch capabilities, bringing them to new customers at lower price points.

Product lines under Bay Trail D are Intel Pentium J2850, Intel Celeron J1850 and Intel Celeron J1750. These offerings are Intel’s smallest-ever packages for desktop processors, to cater to entry-level desktop computing. 

Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC client group, said personal computing was being reinvented with two-in-one devices and greater operating-system choices. With the new two-in-one category, consumers benefit from a device that blends the power of a PC and the mobility of a tablet.

“Ultrabooks have been a major driver of innovation in the PC industry. Currently, laptops with touch are available for less than $450,” Skaugen said.

With the introduction of new Pentium and Celeron processors, Intel expects two-in-one devices to hit price points as low as $349 starting this year, and clamshells as low as $199. 

 

Smart-phone market

In this market, Intel is now shipping a multimode chip, the Intel XMM 7160 modem, which is one of the world’s smallest and lowest-power multimode-multiband solutions for global LTE (long-term evolution) roaming. 

Krzanich said the company’s next-generation LTE product, the Intel XMM 7260 modem, was now under development and expected to ship in 2014. 

“Intel XMM 7260 modem will deliver LTE-advanced features, such as carrier aggregation, timed with future advanced 4G [fourth-generation] network deployments,” he said.

It also introduced its next-generation Intel Atom SoC for 2014 smart phones and tablets code-named “Merrifield”, which is based on the Silvermont micro-architecture. Merrifield is expected to deliver increased performance, power efficiency and battery life.

 

Internet of Things

Smart phones and tablets are not the end state. The next wave of computing is still being defined. Wearable computers and sophisticated sensors and robotics are only some of the initial applications, Krzanich said.

Internet of Things, wearables, all kinds of devices that are about connecting to humans and machines on a real-time basis are in the works. Intel announced the Quark family of silicon chips, Intel’s smallest SoCs. This Quark core is roughly one-fifth the size of Intel’s Atom processor core, and uses about one-tenth the power. It is fully synthesisable, with an open architecture and an open ecosystem. It is designed for the Internet of Things. 

“The new lower-power products will extend Intel’s reach to growing segments, from the industrial Internet of Things to wearable computing. It is designed for applications where lower power and size take priority over higher performance,” he said.

He added that Intel would sample form-factor reference boards based on the first product in this family during the fourth quarter of this year to help partners accelerate development of tailored, optimised solutions initially aimed at the industrial, energy and transport segments.

Intel president Renee James, who took on that role in May, said Intel was going to lead the industry into a new era of computing where everybody computes.

Intel has been driving three breakthroughs in computing: task-based, lifestyle and integrated computing. 

“Semiconductor-based technology will continue to address the world’s most pressing problems and exciting opportunities, changing how we live our lives, run our cities and care for our health,” James said.

By 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s population is expected to be living in mega-cities, James said, and developments in semiconductor technology will advance machine-to-machine data management in smart cities. 

Intel is partnering with the cities of Dublin and London to build a reference solution that could revolutionise urban management, providing citizens with better cities and improved municipal services with lower costs.