布局物联网 英特尔发布新款处理器

Intel Targets New Atom, Quark Chips at Internet of Things
布局物联网 英特尔发布新款处理器

Intel and many other tech companies are talking up the Internet of Things–the buzz phrase for opportunities created when more gadgets and machines begin collaborating with little human intervention. That requires smaller, less expensive chips.

英特尔和许多科技公司都正在关注物联网——越来越多的电子设备和机器，可以在极少人工干预的情况下开始协同工作，物联网概念也因此变得愈发火热，这也引发了对更小、更便宜设备芯片的需求。

The company, whose new leadership is determined to expand beyond chips for computers, held an event in San Francisco Tuesday to introduce two such offerings.

换了新领导层的英特尔，也决定将业务拓展到电脑芯片之外。本周二，英特尔在美国旧金山召开发布会，推出两款新的处理器产品。

One is based on Intel’s familiar Atom chip line, which started in low-end laptops and now is used in some smartphones. The other is based on Quark, a family of even smaller Intel chips that was not disclosed until a company event in September.

其中一款是基于英特尔凌动（Atom）处理器，凌动系列最初是面向低端笔记本，后来逐步延伸到智能手机领域。第二款新品是夸克（Quark）处理器，夸克系列是英特尔今年九月份才宣布推出的新品。

Intel said the Quark-based chips, in particular, could be used to bring more calculating power to many applications, such as managing energy grids, traffic flows on highways and building heating and cooling.

英特尔介绍，夸克芯片特别适用于很多领域的设备，比如能源管理设备、高速公路交通控制设备以及建筑供暖制冷设备等，给这些应用带来更强的计算能力。

“It will allow us to reach into a whole new set of applications and billions of devices that we’ve never been able to reach before,” said Ton Steenman, vice president and general manager of Intel’s intelligent systems group.

“它可以帮助我们进入新的领域，支持我们以前不曾接触的亿万设备，”英特尔副总裁、智能系统部门总经理Ton Steenman表示。

The two new chip lines are the Atom E3800–based on a chip design called Bay Trail–and the Quark SoC X1000. Intel said the chips would be available the first quarter of 2014.

这两款产品分别是凌动E3800——基于Bay Trail芯片设计，另一款为夸克SoC X1000。英特尔表示这两款新产品将在2014年第一季度推向市场。

Steenman declined to give an estimate of their price until the products hit the market. But Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said he expected the new Atom chips to be priced it a range $30 to $50 and the Quark-based products from $5 to $15.

Steenman并未透露这两款芯片的定价信息，但是科技市场咨询公司Moor Insights & Strategy 分析师Patrick Moorhead预计，新的凌动产品Bay Trail价格可能在30到50美元之间，而夸克产品的售价大致在5美元到15美元这一范围。

Besides just offering chips, Intel intends to distribute designs and software for devices using them known as “gateways,” which connect to the existing control circuitry associated with various pieces of machines and equipment. The company doesn’t expect to sell such devices under its own brand, but expects them to serve as prototypes for customers to make gateways of their own.

英特尔的战略不仅限于处理器产品布局，还将为设备提供其称为“门户”的设计和软件服务，这些设计和软件能够将现有的控制电路与众多设备或机器相连。英特尔不打算为该设计和软件服务建立自己的品牌和业务，而是打算用这些服务来展示和教授客户，期望客户最终可以自行解决这些问题。

While sales of the new chips will be nice, Moorhead said a more lucrative business will come from sales of other chips for servers in the data centers that will help manage data generated by Internet of Things applications.

Moorhead看好英特尔这两款新品的销量，但同时指出，由于物联网应用正在产生巨量数据，管理这些数据的数据中心的服务器需求很大——对英特尔来说，为这些服务器制造处理器将会有更高的利润。