Intel’s embedded processors have always been favored for their great longevity, offering long-term support for enterprises to build their setups around. 15-year lifecycles have been the established standard, allowing companies to continue using the same system configuration without transition shocks.

But as Intel moves to turn around its sagging bottom line and revive its foundry business, it is aggressively cutting down its processor families, focusing on newer products. And the latest casualty of this drive is Intel’s 22nm “Bay Trail” and 14nm “Cherry Trail” architectures. 

Which processors are affected? How much of their lifecycle are they losing? What’s the road ahead? We will try to answer all these questions and more. 

The affected processors 

We have mentioned that processors using the older Bay Trail and Cherry Trail lithographies are being phased out, but specifically, the processors are Intel Atom E3805, Atom E3845, Celeron J1900, and Atom x5-E8000. Intel has announced a complete discontinuation of these processors, with third-party manufacturers offering Last Time Buy (LTB) orders already.

What this means is that none of these processors would be manufactured any longer, and any systems using these chips need to start transitioning into a different processor family. While processors hitting End of Lifecycle (EOL) isn’t anything new, the abrupt discontinuation of long lifecycle embedded systems is surprising.

The Bay Trail processors were launched through 2013-14, while the Cherry Trail chips were released in 2015. Taking the expected 15-year lifecycle into account, they were meant to last until 2029-30. But Intel has declared EOL right now, cutting the expected service of these processors by three to four years, which is a massive reduction. 

Why is Intel discontinuing these systems ahead of schedule? 

Intel has been in dire straits for a while. AMD’s Ryzen line of processors managed to steal the market dominance from Intel, offering more performance and efficiency at cheaper costs. Meanwhile, Intel’s foundry business continued to lose money, unable to get a tech lead over TSMC, or even manufacture those chips more cheaply.

But Intel has decided to change things around. With its new 18A process, Intel aims to recapture the pole position in the semiconductor race, manufacturing cutting-edge chips. To this end, it is drastically restructuring its foundry business, cutting down on divisions that are not that profitable. And the legacy chips fit this bill. 

By shutting down the production of these older architectures, the company can focus its resources on the newer lithographies, both in terms of fab capacity and components used in the supply chain. Which leaves consumers relying on these older chips in the lurch, even if it improves Intel’s profitability. 

Security factor

One of the main reasons why official support is necessary is because of security. Modern security threats have evolved from simple malware that an antivirus can defend against to low-level attacks that target the hardware firmware itself.

Securing the computer against such threats requires constant security patches from the manufacturer, which is a significant engineering overhead. Intel is declaring the End of Servicing Updates (ESU) as well, which means that these legacy processors will no longer receive security patches either.

As a result, it also becomes impossible to continue using these embedded systems after the discontinuation, even if you still have working models remaining. The lack of further patches will increase the security vulnerabilities, making them too risky for any sort of industrial or commercial application.

What is the road ahead? 

For now, enterprises using these legacy Bay Trail and Cherry Trail processors can take advantage of the LTB to procure some chips and get through the short term. In the long term, however, there is only one option – upgrade.

The Elkhart Lake and the Amston Lake architectures have been positioned as the replacements by Intel, with the Atom x6000E series and the Intel Core i-3 N series (also the Alder Lake-N processors) fulfilling a similar role.

These are ultra-low-power embedded processors designed to give more performance per watt than the older Bay Trail and Cherry Trail architectures, making them better suited for industrial applications requiring efficiency. And as newer designs, they are equipped with better security features as well, and have a much longer lifecycle remaining, with more active support from Intel.

We recommend clients get in touch with their embedded systems providers to draw up a smooth upgrade roadmap, factoring in both the Last Buy capacities and future requirements to ensure you can transition to a stable framework without any interruption. For more details, reach out to Global American, and our team can advise you on the best upgrade path, taking your application’s needs into account.