Intel is quite clearly serious about offering competition to ARM in the embedded market, and has just announced a new Atom processor series that offers a unique selling point: an integral FPGA processor. Billed as 'the first configurable Intel Atom-based processor,' the Atom E600C series combines an Intel Atom 'Tunnel Creek' chip with an Altera Field Programmable Gate Array — offering, the company claims, significantly more flexibility for ODMs and OEMs.
By adding in the FPGA, customers are able to make fundamental changes at a hardware level without having to go through a hardware revision cycle - which means lowered development costs and faster time to market.
I've been waiting for this for 10 years. I think this kind of solution may be useful in PCs for accelerating graphics work and other math intensive PC tasks.
