Intel’s answer to the $25 Raspberry Pi tiny-sized PC, the Galileo Gen2, is set to be available in August for around $60. The Galileo Gen2 computer is an uncased board with all the components necessary to build a PC. It is targeted at the community of do-it-yourselfers and enthusiasts who make robots, small electronics, wearable devices and even PCs.

The Gen2 succeeds the first Galileo computer, which started shipping late last year for around $70. The new Galileo has a low-power x86 processor called Quark, while the Raspberry Pi has an ARMv7 processor.

Intel is using Galileo as a way to explore opportunities for the Quark chip.

At $60, the board has 100-megabit ethernet and 256MB of DDR3 memory, offering more features for its price compared to the ARM options.

The Galileo Gen2 also offers improved PWM (pulse-width modulation) control line along with the power over ethernet (PoE) capability and improved, general-purpose input/output (GPIOs) speed and toggling capabilities.

The Galileo Gen2 runs on a 32-bit Quark SoC X1000 chip, with clock speeds of up to 400MHz. It has slots for USB, mini-PCI Express and Micro-SD card storage. The board runs Linux, and supports the Arduino integrated development environment.

Key features

• Intel Quark SoC X1000 application processor, a 32-bit, single core, single-thread, Pentium® instruction set architecture (ISA)-compatible CPU, operating at speeds up to 400 MHz.
• Support for a wide range of industry standard I/O interfaces, including a full-sized mini-PCI Express* slot, 100 Mb Ethernet port, Micro-SD slot, USB host port, and USB client port.
• 256 MByte DDR3, 512 KByte embedded SRAM, 8 Mbyte NOR Flash, and 8 Kbit EEPROM standard on the board, plus support for MicroSD card up to 32 MB.
• Hardware-/pin-compatibility with a wide range of Arduino Uno R3 shields.
• Programmable through the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) that is supported on Microsoft Windows*, Mac O*, and Linux host operating systems.
• Support for Yocto 1.4 Poky Linux release.

What's new with Intel Galileo Gen 2

• 6-pin 3.3V USB TTL UART header replaces 3.5mm jack RS-232 console port for Linux debug. New 6-pin connector mates with standard FTDI* USB serial cable (TTL-232R-3V3) and popular USB-to-Serial breakout boards. 12 GPIOs now fully native for greater speed and improved drive strength.
• 12-bit pulse-width modulation (PWM) for more precise control of servos and smoother response.
• Console UART1 can be redirected to Arduino* headers in sketches, eliminating the need for soft-serial in many cases.
• 12V Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) capable (PoE module installation required).
• Power regulation system changed to accept power supplies from 7V to 15V.