Intel’s ‘designed in Ireland’ Galileo board to be honoured at Silicon Valley awards

15 Sep 2014

The Galileo dev board that was ‘designed in Ireland’ and first unveiled at last year’s Maker Faire in Rome will receive an award at the 7th Annual Silicon Valley Awards in Stanford, California, next month.

The dev board, which is also powered by a ‘designed in Ireland’ Quark processor, saw its first big reveal last year in Rome by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. The creation of the Intel Quark SoC X1000, the first product from the Intel Quark technology family of low-power, small-core products was made possible when a local team of Intel executives seized the opportunity to create a chip for the internet of things.

The efforts of the local Intel team were made possible when Ireland’s inward investment body IDA Ireland got behind the 70-strong project leading to the creation of a Quark-powered, Arduino compatible dev board that will allow inventors and creators to put intelligence into the “internet of things” hardware of the future.

“This is the first Intel product developed, from inception, here in Ireland,” said Barry O’Leary, former IDA Ireland chief executive.

“The development of this new world-leading technology is testament to the expertise and skill levels that Intel have built here. The development of this chip here in Ireland shows that we can compete with any location in the world when it comes to developing and manufacturing leading technology. This design project represents a significant coup for Ireland. This project puts Ireland in the list of top countries in the world for chip design.”

The first batch of the dev boards had the badge “designed in Ireland” emblazoned on each board, a rare honour at Intel and one that makes the first batch a serious collector’s item.

The pirates of Silicon Island

Intel’s SVP for the Internet of Things, Philip Moynagh, and members of his team

The team was led by Philip Moynagh, Intel’s recently appointed SVP of Intel’s Internet of Things Group, and GM of Quark Solutions Division, and the business plan for the project has been led by Noel Murphy, Quark X1000 engineering manager.

“It is often said that success has a thousand parents, and that is certainly true of the double win of Quark and Galileo,” Moynagh.

“Intel, the Irish Government and Irish educational institutions have taken great education, augmented it with great networking, framed it with great vision, and delivered great results.”

The Quark chip family completes the quartet of Intel’s reach across the computing continuum – servers (Xeon), personal computers (Core), low-cost, low-power devices (Atom) and now internet of things and wearable computing (Quark).

“What Intel has accomplished with the Galileo board represents not only a great contribution to the global tech economy, but an incredible example of Irish innovation,” said John Hartnett, President and Founder of ITLG. “We look forward to honouring this team’s stunning work.”

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John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com