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Anand Parthasarathy

Intel habitually gives its chip-products-in-the-pipeline weird code names that no one outside the company can ever remember. Last year, it announced two streams of processors for the ultra mobile or hand-held device market, Silverthorne and Diamondville. By the time the product hit the market in early 2008, it had sensibly decided to give it a short, simple name: the Atom, Intel’s smallest processor to date in its x86 family and a significantly low powered device tha t could fuel the new generation of so called Mobile Internet Device or MID — palm-sized computing platforms that could work with screen sizes of 7 inch diagonal or smaller.

The Atom was cleverly timed to ride 2008’s wave of ultra portable personal devices — and by last month, the time was ripe to go to the next level and unveil the Atom in embedded avatars: the Z5xx and N270 aimed at slightly different segments of the market; the former suitable for palm-sized portable applications, while the latter was optimised for fixed location, small form factor systems such as Point of Sale terminals.

The ability to embed the Atom has been seized by the Indian embedded applications community, who have established a good brand equity for their ‘fabless’ designs.

So it was that at the formal launch of the embedded Atom earlier this month, Intel could showcase half a dozen products or reference designs created by Indian design and development houses, many of them ready for market. The fact that the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC 2008) was being held at the same time only helped underline the innovative skills of Indian product design houses.

The Kochi-based InForce Computing has embedded the Atom in ‘Benedict’, its universal hand-held platform, which comes with a 7-inch LCD screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, with built-in WiFi, a GPRS connection if you want to build it around a mobile phone SIM and a GPS antenna for satellite-based tracking. It can read smart cards or run a thermal printer. ( www.inforcecomputing.com ).

The Bangalore-based ProcSys is another embedded player who has harnessed the Atom to create the ION 1800/2600 universal hand-held device. Slightly smaller than the Benedict, it has a 4-inch display; with up to 4 GB of onboard storage. The system shown at the ESC incorporated a printer and a finger print scanner — which made it an ideal device for mobile banking operations in remote branchless areas. ( www.procsys.com )

Another Bangalore-based company KTwo Technologies has harnessed the Atom to solve an endemic problem when it comes to telemedicine: How to obtain first-level pathological results in the field and transmit to a referral hospital. The CytoSight addresses this challenge. It consists of a standard microscope with a digital front end; with the tools to identify and analyse cell images by image processing techniques. Modules extend the range from basic tele-pathology to more complex investigations. The data obtained can be formatted and transmitted via Internet or a cellular data connection. ( www.ktwo.co.in )

Satyam is a strategic partner for the ambitious EMRI — Emergency Management and Research Institute — programme in Andhra Pradesh which has spread to dozens of locations in the State, providing emergency help, including medical assistance through a single number 108. It has harnessed the Atom to create its own multi-application telemedicine systems for the programme. ( www.satyam.com ).

On its part Intel has created reference designs for affordable digital surveillance security systems, embedded with the Atom. The chip can fuel up to four multiplexed video channels — and its small power budget makes it ideal for home security systems. Existing systems have generally harnessed more powerful chips from Intel, Freescale or TI — but the Atom might help open up the market in India.

As these early realisations showed, Indian developers had the savvy to seize the opportunity offered by a chip that meets wide consumer requirements. In the embedded business size does matter — provided it’s Lilliputian.

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