Intel Edison

[tszaboo]

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html
They announced this at CES today. It is
"Discover the Intel® Edison development board, a tiny, ultra-power-efficient development platform the size of an SD* card that is small enough to drop into just about anything. "

Of course they used on the demo some brute force to achieve a function with a 400Mhz CPU what you can do with a comparator. In general, It looks like the small brother of Galileo
http://uk.mouser.com/new/Intel/intel-galileo-development-board/
What do you think about it?

[Dongulus]

The integrated WiFi and Bluetooth in a small, low power package looks promising.

How does one access the GPIO? I can't tell from the picture.

[Torrentula]

How does one access the GPIO?

I guess there won't be much I/O given the SD card form factor of which at least two pins are power pins.

Probably you will be completely frantic about not blowing out the few GPIOs you have on a $30-50 piece of equpiment. Look at the Raspberry Pi guys.

Kanonen auf Spatzen.

On the other hand, yes it looks very interesting as a tiny low power Linux box which I could see being put to good use.

[LukeW]

Could be interesting, the tiny, well integrated, well designed hardware is very reminiscent of Electric Imp, but maybe, hopefully this will be more openly usable and won't have the lock-in to the electric imp platform that the EI card does.

[TiN]

Similar "computer" is already available on market few years. Its Eye-Fi SD card with WiFi. Remember reading some websites that people hacked it and got access to its linux OS shell

[amyk]

Interesting... it's essentially a 486-class core at a much higher clock, with some Pentium features.

The hardware reference manual has some curious phrasing that appears to be from the 486-era documentation:

The unit is binary compatile with the 8087, Intel287, and Intel387 coprocessors, and with the Intel OverDrive(R) processor

I should go dig out the 486 books and compare

They even mention features included "for DOS compatibility"... good to know Intel is still devoted to PC compatibility!

[tszaboo]

Clock to clock, it runs against the Cortex A5. Everywhere they say:
"The Quark chips use one tenth of the power of Intel's Atom and measure one fifth of Atom's size". That means 0,6W,. and die size can mean anything from 5 mm². That is actually not bad. If they price it correctly, the Wifi is not onboard, I would gladly use this for embedded. The core even has a PCI express lane, so connecting it to an FPGA (graphics card?!) is not problemtic.

[BBQ]

The integrated WiFi and Bluetooth in a small, low power package looks promising.

How does one access the GPIO? I can't tell from the picture.

I found a picture of the back side. 21 or 23 pins it seems. There has to be some kind of connector, cheap hopefully.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/2556/20140109/intel-edison-pc-may-be-smaller-than-an-sd-card-but-it-packs-a-punch.htm

[Stonent]

The integrated WiFi and Bluetooth in a small, low power package looks promising.

How does one access the GPIO? I can't tell from the picture.

I found a picture of the back side. 21 or 23 pins it seems. There has to be some kind of connector, cheap hopefully.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/2556/20140109/intel-edison-pc-may-be-smaller-than-an-sd-card-but-it-packs-a-punch.htm

The image was much larger than used in the article, they just used HTML to make it smaller, here's what it looks like at full resolution.



The spacing looks identical to the SD edge connector. I wonder if they'll have some socket similar to a SIM card mated with SD where the SD pins mate from the edge and the other pins are bent over and mate from underneath?

They could probably make an LGA style socket where you flip the top, place the Edison in and clamp it down.

[Stonent]

I haven't been able to ascertain if it has an ADC, but so far since I've seen no mention of it, probably not.

[SeanB]

Probably has USB and likely I2C so adding one will be very easy. Likely there are at least 2 temperature sensors as well, one in the CPU and one in the bridge chip.

[peter.mitchell]

It's not a real product until i can buy it from digikey.
Infact, it's not more than hearsay until i can get a bloody datasheet!

Also, yeah, i can see this being pretty obnoxious to prototype with because the accessible pins...

[SeanB]

As it likely will have only PCIE and USB or at least HDMI it will be somewhat usable. Might lead to a whole raft of USB IO devices though at a low cost, with a decent library to drive them.

[tszaboo]

It's not a real product until i can buy it from digikey.
Infact, it's not more than hearsay until i can get a bloody datasheet!

Also, yeah, i can see this being pretty obnoxious to prototype with because the accessible pins...

I'm guessing it will be a vaporware. It will probably fail badly on the market they targeting, and even it would be good for something else, that will not matter. I mean low power consumption is one thing, and charging something every day is nonsense.

[remixed123]

With both BLE and Wifi, it will work well with headless devices for config and setup. Also I'd imagine the use of beacons will be another area for the device.

Glenn.

[Stonent]

I'm thinking Google Glass + MAME. Or tablets with upgradable processors.

[amyk]

It's not a real product until i can buy it from digikey.
Infact, it's not more than hearsay until i can get a bloody datasheet!

Also, yeah, i can see this being pretty obnoxious to prototype with because the accessible pins...

Here's the datasheets and related docs on the SoC:
https://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/21828-102-2-25120/329676_QuarkDatasheet.pdf
https://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/21826-102-2-25118/Intel%20Quark%20Core_DevMan_001.pdf
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/23197/eng/Quark_BSP_BuildGuide_329687_003.pdf

[BravoV]

Interesting... it's essentially a 486-class core at a much higher clock, with some Pentium features.

The hardware reference manual has some curious phrasing that appears to be from the 486-era documentation:

The unit is binary compatile with the 8087, Intel287, and Intel387 coprocessors, and with the Intel OverDrive(R) processor

I should go dig out the 486 books and compare

They even mention features included "for DOS compatibility"... good to know Intel is still devoted to PC compatibility!

So we're back to countless hours of tweaking the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, again ?

[miguelvp]

Well, it's finally out.

More detailed information here:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html

Key Features
The Intel Edison module uses a 22-nm Intel® Atom™ SoC, formerly Silvermont that includes a dual core, dual threaded CPU at 500 MHz and a 32-bit Intel® Quark™ processor MCU at 100 MHz. It supports 40 GPIOs and includes: 1 GB LPDDR3, 4 GB EMMC, and dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth® Low Energy on a module the size of a postage stamp.

The Intel Edison module will initially support development with Arduino* and C/C++, followed by Node.JS, Python, RTOS, and Visual Programming support in the near future.

The Intel Edison module includes a device-to-device and device-to-cloud connectivity framework to enable cross-device communication and a cloud-based, multi-tenant, time-series analytics service.

They have even part numbers from digikey and mouser in their document on how to make modules.
https://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/23158-102-3-27299/edison-module_HG_331189-001.pdf

and there is plenty of documentation on the main site and in the downloads link of the main site.

Also sparkfun has a lot of blocks designed for it:

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1589

Verdict too expensive, but if you need that much computing power, then what is $50 for just the edison?

Edit: also in the documents they are already mentioning some erratas with the UARTs but apparently you can work around them, didn't dig too much.

Pictures:



Link to full res of the above image (I resized it to half) 2000x1125 pixels:
http://newsroom.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8306-5091/Intel_Edison_with_stamp_nr.jpg


Front:


Back:


With breakout from Intel:


With Arduino module from Intel:

[SirNick]

I just can't help but feel like they have no idea what they're doing in the embedded market.

[Richard Crowley]

Sparkfun are selling them on pre-order. They expect 500 in stock next week. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13024
They use a tiny, stackable 70-pin connector to break out all the pins, so you can layer the I/O boards to assemble the desired functionality.

Sparkfun already have a bunch of these stackable I/O expander boards for Edison....
GPIO:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13038
Base (2 USB):  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13045
Battery with charger: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13037
9DOF: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13033
Micro SD:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13041
I2C:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13034
PWM:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13042
ADC:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13046
Dual H-bridge: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13043
Arduino breakout: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13097
FTDI:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13040
Console (USB): https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13039
OLED: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13035

Intel has been in the embedded market since the invention of the integrated circuit.

[miguelvp]

70 pin connector sources from the pdf linked before and at the end of this post.

DF40C-70DS-0.4V(51) 1.5 mm Mating Stack Height

http://www.findchips.com/search/DF40C-70DS-0.4V(51)
http://octopart.com/partsearch#!?q=DF40C-70DS-0.4V(51)

DF40C(2.0)-70DS-0.4V(51) 2.0 mm Mating Stack Height

http://www.findchips.com/search/DF40C(2.0)-70DS-0.4V(51)
http://octopart.com/partsearch#!?q=DF40C(2.0)-70DS-0.4V(51)

DF40HC(3.0)-70DS-0.4V(51) 3.0 mm Mating Stack Height

http://www.findchips.com/search/DF40HC(3.0)-70DS-0.4V(51)
http://octopart.com/partsearch#!?q=DF40HC(3.0)-70DS-0.4V(51)

Information on what is required to make your own board to mate with the edison:
https://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/23158-102-3-27299/edison-module_HG_331189-001.pdf

Edit: Mating connectors part numbers to make them stackable can be found on DigiKey at least.

One thing to take into account is that the GPIOs are at core voltage of 1.8V you if you design or use some of the sparkfun modules you might need to level shift the voltage.

[David Hess]

There have been discussions elsewhere about Intel's apparent reluctance to compete effectively in the embedded and low end markets against ARM being caused by not wanting to cannibalize their own market for low end x86 processors.  Historically this has been the case with their other processors like the i960.

The lack of even a simple display interface or peripheral bus could be an effort at market segmentation to prevent competition with their low end x86 processors.  I think that is going to be a problem when the ARM processors they are competing with have a display interface.

[Rasz]

I just can't help but feel like they have no idea what they're doing in the embedded market.

this

not to mention third party usb transceiver and wifi chip on a product made by the BIGGEST BADDEST mofo on the block with most advanced chip fabs on the planet? They couldnt even bother to integrate those on silicon? Its like they arent even trying, this might be just some side projects to tick KPI checkbox somewhere.

But Im sure there is a huge untapped market of embedded engineers that need processor booting in legacy real address mode for that sweet SWEET Windows 2.0 compatibility

[tszaboo]

Verdict too expensive, but if you need that much computing power, then what is $50 for just the edison?

Ask them they will say is not too expensive. They made this collaborating with sparkfun, and it is cheaper than most wifi arduino shields. On sparkfun.
But that is not the baseline they should have aimed! All the Olimex boards have more functions and speed. The RPi is probably faster and cheaper. Sure, it is not wearable, but this one isnt either. Where is the battery connection? Where is the display connection? Why doest this cost more than a basic android phone or even a crappy tablet?
Big players in the embedded market tried selling their platforms -where the development board was cheaper than the chip itself- and still they failed. This should cost 20$ (or similar no-brainer price) and run embedded windows to have any sucess.