Intel Adds Virtualization Platforms for Industrial Systems

At the Embedded World event in Nürnberg, Germany this week Intel (INTC) unveiled the Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation Series, providing an accelerated path to implement state-of-the-art industrial embedded systems. This is the first pre-integrated, pre-validated embedded virtualization product that allows customers to merge and manage multiple discrete systems into a single machine.

"More and more, the industrial sector is looking to technology for innovative ways to become even more efficient and competitive," said Jim Robinson, general manager of Segments and Broad Market Division, Internet of Things Solutions Group at Intel. "By bringing together what have typically been multiple subsystems within industrial equipment into a single computing platform, Intel's application-ready platform makes it easier and more affordable for OEMs, machine builders and system integrators to deliver consolidated, virtualized systems."

The new series bundles an embedded computer with an Intel Core i7 processor and a pre-integrated virtualization software stack with Wind River Hypervisor. It is preconfigured to support three partitions running two instances of Wind River VxWorks for real-time applications and one instance of Wind River Linux 5.0 for non-real-time applications. Baosight, one of the largest system integrators in China, used the Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation Series to create iCentroGate, a secure data collection and communication product that merged the tasks of two separate devices into one CPU. Using the Intel solution, the company reported saving an estimated 60 percent of development time and 50 percent of development costs.

"The Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation Series is helping us provide a unique and innovative solution to our mainstream customers, which gives us a huge technological advantage," said Dong Wensheng, general manager of Baosight's R&D Division. "By starting with the Intel application-ready platform, our development cost and time have been reduced significantly."

Intel also released a new version of Intel System Studio, a suite of software tools tailored to developers creating industrial embedded systems including those using the Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation Series. The new software and tool suite provides highly optimized build and performance analysis tools to help ensure functional reliability throughout the system life cycle. Intel System Studio is available free of charge for a limited time if purchased with the Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation Series. System Studio is a part of the Intel Developer Program for Internet of Things.