# Intel Curie Module
**Wikidata**: [Q26219928](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26219928)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/intel-curie-module

## Summary
The Intel Curie Module is a tiny, low-power system-on-chip (SoC) designed by Intel for wearable and consumer sensor devices. It combines a 32-bit microcontroller, motion sensors, Bluetooth Low Energy radio, and battery-charging circuitry in a package roughly the size of a button.

## Key Facts
- Manufacturer: Intel Corporation (founded 18 July 1968, Santa Clara, California, United States)
- Official product fact-sheet URL: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wearables/intel-curie-fact-sheet.html
- Target market: wearables and consumer sensor applications
- Integrates compute, motion-sensing, wireless, and power-management blocks in a single module
- Announced and released in 2015; discontinued by 2017

## FAQs
### Q: What did the Intel Curie Module actually contain?
A: The module packed an Intel Quark SE SoC with 80 KB SRAM, 384 KB flash, a 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope, Bluetooth Low Energy, USB and GPIO interfaces, plus battery-charging circuitry.

### Q: Why was Curie aimed at wearables?
A: Its coin-size footprint, sub-10 mW active power, and built-in motion sensors let designers add always-on sensing to rings, fitness bands, or garments without bulky boards or multiple chips.

### Q: Is the Curie Module still available?
A: No. Intel ceased production and sales around 2017 and redirected embedded efforts toward other Quark and Atom products.

### Q: Which boards used Curie?
A: The best-known implementation was the Arduino/Genuino 101 board, a beginner-friendly platform that embedded the Curie module and was supported by the Arduino IDE.

## Why It Matters
Curie was Intel’s first purpose-built, button-sized solution for the booming wearables market of the mid-2010s. By condensing processor, sensors, wireless, and power circuitry into a single package, it let product teams shrink gadget size, cut power draw, and simplify supply chains—key enablers for fashion-friendly or battery-powered wearables. Although short-lived, Curie pushed the industry toward highly integrated, ultra-low-power modules and demonstrated that x86-class compute could exist at sensor-node power levels, influencing later Bluetooth-MCU hybrids from multiple vendors.

## Notable For
- First Intel module to combine Quark CPU, BLE radio, and motion sensors in < 1 cm²
- Supplied inside the 2015 Arduino 101, giving millions of makers a 32-bit, sensor-ready board
- Marketed as “coin-size” to emphasize suitability for rings, pendants, and smart garments
- Rapid end-of-life: announced January 2015, shipping mid-2015, discontinued 2017

## Body
### Overview
Intel unveiled the Curie Module at CES 2015, positioning it as a turnkey hardware building block for the exploding wearables segment. The device integrated a Quark SE SoC fabricated on a 32 nm process, 384 KB of on-die flash, 80 KB SRAM, a low-power 6-axis combo sensor (accelerometer plus gyroscope), Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, battery-charging logic, and I/O such as USB and GPIO in a package small enough to fit on a jacket button.

### Technical Details
- CPU: 32 MHz single-thread Intel Quark (x86 Pentium-class ISA subset)
- Memory: 80 KB SRAM for data, 384 KB flash for code
- Wireless: 2.4 GHz BLE 4.0 with on-chip stack
- Sensors: Bosch 6-axis IMU (3-axis accel + 3-axis gyro)
- Power: 1.8 V core, active power ≈ 8 mW, standby < 30 µW
- Package: approx. 15 mm × 10 mm LGA

### Software & Ecosystem
Intel provided the “Zephyr” real-time OS (later open-sourced under the Linux Foundation) and an Arduino core, letting developers use familiar Wiring-based sketches. A Windows utility called “Intel Curie OTA” enabled over-the-air firmware updates via BLE.

### Adoption & End-of-Life
Besides Arduino 101, Curie appeared in third-party fitness bands and a smart snowboard helmet. However, limited RAM, niche x86 toolchain requirements, and stiff competition from ARM-based MCUs led to modest uptake. Intel announced the product’s retirement in July 2017, reallocating resources to higher-margin Quark and Atom embedded SKUs.