Intel today took another step forward in its quest to conquer the embedded market, with the company announcing new x86-based "system-on-a-chip" (SoC) processors designed to power a range of devices from television set-top boxes to mobile Internet devices to telecommunications infrastructure.
The first batch of products is under the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor line which consists of eight variants with speeds between 600MHz and 1.2 GHZ and power consumption between 11.5 and 21 watts. The chips combine a CPU core, memory controller, input/output controller, and acceleration technology.
While the first products will be built around the Pentium M core, Intel says it has 15 further SoC projects in the pipeline, many of which will center on the low-power Atom core. Meanwhile, in somewhat related news, Intel's long-rumored dual-core Atom processor for "Netbooks" now has a fixed launch date and price - if a recent leak is to be believed. The Atom 330 is now supposedly due to arrive on September 21 running at 1.6GHz and consuming a mere 8W of power, for $43.