Intel's Atom is underwhelming no more: New chip packs 16 cores

From InfoWorld: Intel's Atom was mostly known as a low-end chip for mobile devices that underperformed. That may not be the case anymore.

The latest Atom C3000 chips announced on Tuesday have up to 16 cores and are more sophisticated than ever. The chips are made for storage arrays, networking equipment, and internet of things devices.

The new chips have features found mostly in server chips, including networking, virtualization, and error correction features.

Networking and storage devices don't require a lot of horsepower, so the low-power Atom chips fit right in. Only a handful of Intel server chips have more than 16 cores, but the number of Atom cores means the chip can handle more streams of data.

The Atom C3000 fits right into Intel's long-term plan to grow in the server, IoT and storage markets.

Intel quit making Atom chips for smartphones last May, and the chip lineup was reconfigured to include E3900 chips for IoT devices and the T5700 and T5500 chips used on the Joule maker boards.

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