"With processors like the Pentium M, it's easy to make the change," noted Eric Gulliksen, project director for Venture Development Corp. (Natick, Mass.), an industry analyst. "It only takes a matter of weeks because it's inherently designed to be partitioned."
Gulliksen said the inherent partitioning in processors such as the Pentium M make them strong candidates for embedded applications because partitioning enables prescribed parts of the processors to be shut down when they are not needed, thus cutting power consumption.
Intel executives said Intel has made a commitment to design its embedded processors in parallel with its other processors because customers have demanded it.
"Over the past two to three years, we have changed our philosophy from trailing the PC market to being in lock-step with it," said Ton Steenman, general manager of the Embedded Intel Architecture Division (Chandler, Ariz.). "We found that designers had a need to intercept the technology much earlier."
Steenman cited the point-of-sale market as one that has aggressively pursued state-of-the-art processor technology. There, he said, designers were particularly intent on eliminating the lag time between PC and embedded markets.
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