Intel and ARM set to enable future creativity

But that's changed and Embedded World proved that. One of the words dominating the show was Atom. Well done, Intel's marketing department. Almost in one fell swoop, Intel has changed the face of the sector – companies that previously had no interest in what could be termed the 'low end' are now lining up with launches or announcements. The embedded systems sector is, effectively, unconquered territory for Intel. And there's a lot of territory to be conquered. IDC's recent prediction that there will be 15 billion connected devices out there by 2015 is an indication of the available market. previously. However, it's not going to have it all its own way. The other word concentrating people's minds was ARM. The Cortex-M3 core, which is finding its way into a lot of microcontrollers, will help to drive the migration to 32bit. What both devices are likely to enable is design creativity. And it's creativity that will continue to move the market forward.