Intel to enter core-licensing market with Quark?

On the first day of IDF'13, Intel announced the Quark family tiny SoC. What is interesting is the emphasis of "fully synthesizable" claim.

Quark is said to be a "Pentium-ISA" class core. Which sounds familiar when it comes to Xeon Phi, or Intel MIC.

Intel apparently is plotting its roadmap of the next decade by targeting at Internet of Things, or IoT. IoT actually requires many roles in the ecosystem. Intel undoubtedly already occupied a position in aggregating and processing so-called big data. But when it comes to the edge of front line where data gets collected, other microprocessor vendors still dominate with extreme low power consumption and cost, an area in which Intel always falls behind. Quark targets the segment where microprocessor is even more tiny than Atom family of processors. It is going to directly compete with Cortex-R and even Cortex-M class MCUs.

How Intel will enter the previously untouched land of tiny-to-pico processors is interesting. With the "full synthesizable" claim apparently Intel is not going to do all the design and manufacturing process alone. Due to the various and different requirement, and extreme cost-sensitiveness. Doing it all alone would not make full sense. In near future it is not possible for Intel to get familiar and customize for every industries that are going to get more digitized and connected in the next decade.

This is not the first time Intel attempts to license its microarchitectures. Not long after introduction of the first generation Atom processors, Intel announced partnership with TSMC to provide programs utilizing Atom microarchitecture, effectively providing core IP licensing. But due to various known and unknown reasons, this plan was soon suspended and never came out a practical result. And now Intel has already become a direct competitor in foundry business.

It remains to be seen if and how Intel will license its core. The more possible is combining it with foundry services so customers can do one-stop shipping for services like what they do now at TSMC.