The effect on board vendors and their customers will be extreme, in some cases forcing expensive redesigns, some board vendors said. Other board vendors said they expect only minimal disruption since they and their customers have done their designs with obsolescence in mind. The first group lamented that the five-year life cycle they said they were originally promised has now shortened to three years or less, and they noted that a 500-MHz Pentium II module and the date of its demise were announced on the very same day. The second group, on the other hand, praised Intel for providing long advance warning of end of life.

Among those using Intel processor modules on VME bus boards, compact PCI boards and/or ISA/PCI single-board computers are Aitech Defense Systems, Concurrent Technologies Inc., Dynatem Inc., Force Computers, General Micro Systems, Matrix, Motorola Computer Group, RadiSys Corp., Teknor/Xtech Embedded Computers, VMIC and Ziatech Corp.

About three years ago, Intel's Embedded Microcomputer Division, based here, crafted a long-life road map for certain processors and modules to cushion embedded-computing customers from the rapid obsolescence of parts that is part and parcel of commercial computing. Renamed the Applied Computing Products Division (ACPD), the group recently tapped into the processor modules crafted by Intel's mobile computing division, the Pentium MMC1 and Pentium II MMC2, with their low-power focus, recasting them as the EMC1 and EMC2.

The "long-life" concept rapidly changed, however, according to sources. "That five years very quickly became three years and, in some cases, as little as 18 months," said one.

Joe Jensen, director of marketing at Intel ACPD, said the original rationale behind offering processor modules — which combine a microprocessor with L2 cache, a PCI north bridge, voltage regulator and assorted parts — has disappeared. "We started doing modules with the P6 architecture, which had external caches, and Intel would not disclose its IP [intellectual property] to customers to allow them to do their own L2 cache interface," he said. The next spin of the processors, however, integrated the L2 cache onto the processor die.

By supplying modules, which contain non-Intel components, Intel runs into the same obsolescence risk as its module customers, sources said. "If Intel commits to five years and their cache supplier or voltage regulator supplier says he's switching to another technology, they're dead," said Benoit Robert, product manager for single-board computers at Xtech (Blainville, Quebec), a spin-off of Teknor Industrial Computers (Boisbriand, Quebec), which acquired Teknor in July.

"Perhaps we were a little naive in terms of what it would take to keep [modules] going," admitted Jensen, who said that component-level solutions are far more cost-effective than modules. "We have very rigorous qual requirements on modules, essentially the same as on components, and every time we change anything on the module, even a capacitor, we have to go through a requal, so it's just not feasible for us to extend the life of those modules beyond three years. The 500-MHz EMC2 is the end of the line."

The EMC2 connector, he added, "would run out of gas at 500 MHz anyway." And "there are no plans at this point for an EMC3."

According to one board vendor who requested anonymity, "It doesn't make sense economically for them to make modules, so they're pushing people subtly and not so subtly into buying chips. When the L2 cache was not on-chip, they had difficulty selling just the chip, but now that L2 cache is on die, it doesn't make any sense for them to continue to make modules."

He noted that a number of board vendors resisted buying modules at first but had no choice if they wanted to track advances in Intel processors. He also noted that Intel is steering its embedded customers toward processors in the Socket 370 package, which "looks very much like the old Pentium, now that they've figured out how to put chips back in a more-conventional package. We wanted to get off modules anyway."

A marketer at RadiSys (Hillsboro, Ore.), which is 15-percent owned by Intel, solicited a collection of comments from company engineers on the issue. "In the fast-churn mobile world, Intel's No. 1 reason for creating a module was to sell more of their newest technology into the high-volume mobile market, and now that they've established the market pull, they don't really need the modules anymore," the engineers said. "And now that the chips include the L2 cache, much of the design complexity and high-speed SRAM sourcing validation issues have gone away."

'Happier in chips'

They further noted that "Intel will be much happier selling high-margin, cutting-edge chips than potentially diluting profits by offering a full module. Since the mobile group is EOLing [end of lifing] modules, the ACPD can't ride their coattails anymore. We lose the easy upgrade path of modules, but we don't know of any customers who planned on doing that anyway."

Among those interviewed by EE Times, Concurrent, Force, Dynatem and VMIC were all taken by surprise by the news. "This will really complicate our life," said Craig Giraud, North American sales manager at Concurrent (Cincinnati). "Redesigning boards requires a significant investment."

According to a second board vendor, who requested anonymity, "Anything on the embedded road map was supposed to get a minimum of five years of support, and now they're saying, 'We meant five years from the date of announcement.' Now, there's one module that's not out for a year and a half yet and it's already EOL. And the 500-MHz part, which they haven't even shipped yet, goes obsolete in three years, and their response is that they announced it a couple of years ago! This is going to cost a lot of people a lot of money."

He said that with the abbreviated module life cycle, by the time his company designs a module into a board and customers design the board into their equipment and "get their product out, they're in obsolescence already. People need to be aware that mobile modules are for the mobile industry, and they've got to read the fine print."

According to a third board vendor, who also asked not to be identified, "Their new strategy is to guarantee only three years of supply for modules, but they don't tell you when they start counting. You need to know when the three years begin."

Dynatem (Mission Viejo, Calif.) has designed a new generation of Intel-based boards using the EMC2 module. Mike Horan, vice president of marketing and sales at the company, said, "EMC2 seems to have a role to play well into the future because it's part of the [Intel] embedded group and is guaranteed for five years. Many of our customers will be converting over to EMC2." Guess again.

Different philosophy

Horan seemed unperturbed, however, when told that things have changed. "There's a different philosophy these days," he said, as the embedded computing world has embraced high-volume commercial-computing components. "Customers know that if they have a 10-year program, the chances are high they won't be able to [continue to] get the same components. So we've got a big effort here to do our own BIOS so we can make changes transparent for them."

Moreover, Horan said, "We're hearing from customers, even military customers, that they plan to upgrade during the course of program — something we never heard from military customers in the past. It's become part of accepting Intel products and Windows and the like, that there will be constant upgrades during a program. This will have a big impact and give us some heartburn, but 95 percent of customers won't care. Last buys aren't exactly unexpected. It's part of the dynamic of the business now and we've got to stay on our toes."

Even less perturbed was Joe Pavlat, director of strategic planning for Motorola Computer Group at the Monterey Design Center (Monterey, Calif.) "It's true the lifetimes are not five years anymore, but the embedded side [of Intel] has done a very good job of giving us a lot of advanced notice — a year or 18 months — to place orders," he said. "That's unlike [the days before the embedded road map] when the commercial side used to say, 'Oh, by the way, we're discontinuing this part next quarter and if you didn't have orders in last week, you're hosed."

Discontinuation of components "is always a headache for some customers, but in general, most customers who have been using Intel products for a few years understand that this is how life goes in the Intel world," Pavlat said. "They write their software, for example, so it isn't processor-speed specific, so in general, the impact will be small and most customers won't care. We'll continue to build EMC2 products as long as it makes sense."

The RadiSys engineers were not really distressed, either. "It's been apparent for quite a while that the upgradable module concept only went so far as the 440BX chip set could take it," they said.

And Jim Medeiros, director of strategic programs at Ziatech (San Luis Obispo, Calif.), was completely unfazed. "Buying the right PC technology and deploying it in the embedded marketplace has always been an art and not a science," he said. "As much as we would like our suppliers to make components forever, it is not reasonable for us to expect them to do this if the business is not there. The fact that Intel even commits to providing a chip set for any more than six months is miles ahead of where we used to be.

"It's a half-full/half-empty water glass situation," Medeiros continued. "Those complaining are just sucking air. I'd rather drink the water, admit that there wasn't enough and move on."

It's worth noting that in "the interests of longevity," Teknor licensed the rights to manufacture a Pentium II "mini-cartridge" from Intel when that module format started heading for end of life, said Xtech's Robert.

"They felt they absolutely had to have it," said Intel's Jensen, who added that Intel "would consider" a similar arrangement for the EMC2 "with the right partner."

According to the new Intel ACPD road map, dated August 25, last order and last delivery dates "are not fixed...are subject to change based on component supply and business conditions . . . [and] are flexible and will be revisited as we get closer to those dates . . . Economies of scale and BOM changes prevent modules from exhibiting the price curve and life cycle expected for components. Customers who do not have an existing design based on the [EMC2 modules] are advised to consider components first in their selection process."