Intel Architecture Labs - Definition and Overview

Intel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, is the development arm of Intel Corporation for the "Intel Architecture" segment of its business. In 2003 this was over 86% of Intel's total revenue and 138% of its total operating income.

Originally IAL did research into both hardware and software initiatives, but the latter became de-emphasized after the efforts collided with similar activities by Microsoft. For example, Native Signal Processing (NSP) was a software initiative to allow Intel-based PCs to have the characteristics of dedicated signal processing hardware used for specialize applications. Once Microsoft refused to support NSP in its operating systems however, NSP died as an orphan and few IAL projects have dared to risk competing with Microsoft since.

However, IAL successes in the hardware world are legendary, and include PCI, USB, AGP, the Northbridge/Southbridge core logic architecture and PCI Express (the now-dominant architecture for multi-processor servers).