Embedded x86: Intel's Mixed Week (And A Via Revisit)

This blog post references my cover story ‘Embedded x86: Keystone Of Your Non-PC Design?‘ in EDN’s May 29, 2008 edition. It’s one of a series of web addendums to the print writeup.

If I were in Paul Otellini’s shoes right now (not that I’d remotely want to be, paycheck aside), I’m not sure how I’d be feeling right about now. First the good news:

• The company had a largely successful Computex, highlighted by the unveiling of 4-series chipsets and the Atom CPU’s coming-out party,
• Intel’s long-touted WiMAX vision seems to finally be crystallizing,
• Anand’s early benchmarking (with commentary from Ars Technica and Engadget) suggests that the company’s got another winner on its hands with still-on-schedule Nehalem microarchitecture and derived CPUs (to competitor AMD’s continued detriment), and
• Speaking of AMD, the antitrust trial’s been pushed back to at least 2010, critically delaying the timeframe in which (assuming it even wins) Intel’s fiscally strapped competitor can garner any legal relief for its market segment share woes

On the other hand:

• The company just received a (slap on the wrist) $25.4M antitrust fine from the South Korean FTC,
• The U.S. FTC has just formally opened an inquiry into Intel’s business practices, following in the footsteps of the state of New York, and
• The company’s also being investigated for possible antitrust infringement by the European Union, although recent reports of the inquiry’s wrap-up with stiff penalties to come turned out to be premature.

So is the glass half full or half empty, folks?

p.s…Speaking of x86 CPUs, last week I told you about a no-fans-or-heatsinks survival experiment that was underway on a Via Pico-ITX board. Per Engadget, the system was still happily humming away after two weeks, so the testers decided to unleash a hair dryer on the CPU. The outcome was…predictable. But I’m still left wondering; will it blend?