Embedded System - Intel Quark

  

 

 

 

What is it (D2000) ?

 

Intel Quark Microcontroller D2000 is the lowest end board using Intel Quark familiy. It would cost just around 15 US Dollar which is much cheaper than the famous Arduino board.

However the performance of the chipset is amzaing comparing to the cost. It is almost same performance level as Intel 486 or Pentium chipset (I am not sure if you are in such a generation to recognize such a buzzword like Intel 386, 486, Pentium rather than the words like Intel i5, i7 etc). When I first started to play PC in early 90s, Intel 486 was the highest performing chipset in the PC market.

 

Now just 15 dollar and credit card size board have almost the same capability as the highest end board a couple of decades ago.

 

Now let's take a 10000 feet overview of the board.

 

 

 

How does it look like ?

 

The package looks as follows. The package has a board (D2000) and USB cable in it. On the board, you would see see racks of connector pins that looks like Arduino board. Actually it has a set of connector pin that are exactly same array as Arduino(But one thing to keep in mind is that Quark chipset is operating based on 3.3V whereas Arduino board is operating based in 5 V in most case.). In addition to those Arduino compatible connector pins, there are many other pins and a battery slot and a lot of jump pins by which you can reconfigure the board in many different ways. Like Arduino it has a programmable LED so that you can easily try simple program without connecting any external circuit. One good thing comparing to Arduino, D2000 has a built in sensor module which has functionality of 6-Axis eCOMPASS, Accelerometer, Temp Sensor. It means you can try many different kind of sensor programming without purchasing any extra sensor module (this is also a big cost saving).

 

 

NOTE : For the descriptions of PINs on the board, refer to Getting to Know the Pins on Intel Quark Microcontroller D2000

 

 

How do I program the board ?

 

As we use Arduino IDE for Arduino board programming, Intel provide a special SDK (Software Development Kit) called Intel System Studio for Quark board. I would not explain on the details of this tool. Refer to Software Installation page and LED Blinking page for a little bit further information.

 

 

 

Why did I buy the board ?

 

Why did I buy this board ? There were several reasons for me to pick this one (Of course, this is purely personal reason.. you may have different reason)

  • It came from such a huge player from the semi-conductor market (I thought it is likely to be one of the major chipset for IoT market)
  • Super cheap. Only 15 US dollars.
  • I wanted to have some hands-on experience with Eclipse based SDK (Software Development Kit) with almost no cost.
  • It can be a practical chipset for IoT which would require super low energy consumption

 

 

Reference :

 

[1] Quark Processor - Documentation

[2] The Intel Quark microcontroller: Why an x86 is the right stuff for the IoT  

[3] Introducing the Intel D2000 Quark Microcontroller Developer Kit

[4] Getting to Know the Pins on Intel Quark Microcontroller D2000