Does the name Intel ring a bell? Heard of them? If you’re an embedded designer, you can be forgiven for not knowing much about Intel. After all, aren’t they the company that makes the… what’dya call it… PC processors? What’s that got to do with embedded systems?

Well, it’s time to wake up and smell the espresso, because Intel is jumping into the embedded-processor pool with both feet. Last week, the world’s most profitable chipmaker unleashed ten new x86 processors specifically for embedded applications. And these ain’t no moldy old cast-off ’486 chips collecting dust behind the file cabinet, either. All ten of ’em are fast, fire-breathing multicore processors with high-end features. Everybody out of the pool. The whale just jumped in.