News
News Categories

Intel Launches Atom-Based MinnowBoard, Seen as Direct Competitor to Raspberry Pi

By Wong Chung Wee - on 1 Aug 2013, 9:24am

Intel Launches Atom-Based MinnowBoard, Seen as Direct Competitor to Raspberry Pi

Intel has launched its Atom-based Minnowboard that is seen as a direct competitor to the Raspberry Pi. This board is jointly developed by the Intel Open Source Technology Center and Circuitco, with the primary aim of introducing the Intel x86 architecture to the embedded systems community.

(Image Source: Intel Open Source Technology Center)

The MinnowBoard is powered by a 32-bit Intel Atom E640 processor, with an accompanying EG20T Platform Control Hub (PCH). It features 1GB of DDR2 system memory and has an integrated graphics controller in the form of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600. For its operating system, the board functions on the Angstrom distribution that is a Linux distribution targeted at embedded systems. MinnowBoard is currently for sale now from online distributors for US$199 (excluding taxes and shipping charges).

Compared to the Raspberry Pi, which retails for at a much lower price of US$35, the MinnowBoard appears to be extravagant. However, the Raspberry Pi features components that are less powerful. For example, the Raspberry Pi Model B ships with Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM-based processor with 512MB of system memory. One of the similarities of the two embedded system boards is the communal hardware and software support. There is a MinnowBoard Google Group that is dedicated to the users of the new Intel embedded system board. For more information, do visit its official site here.

(Source: MinnowBoard via HotHardware.com)

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.