Although Intel Corp. has around twenty design wins of media tablets with its Atom system-on-chips, the company does not project sales of its SoCs for slates and smartphones to account for a significant part of its revenue this year. The world's largest chipmaker now projects Atom chips for ultra-mobile devices to become popular in 2013.

"It is not predicated on doing more sales in either tablets or in smartphones, but don’t take from that, those aren’t important segments. We think we are on a path to have a lot of products in the market, we are winning design wins, which really is the momentum that builds into 2013," said Stacy Smith, chief financial officer of Intel, during the company's quarterly conference call with financial analysts.

Although Intel has been trying to enter the market of chips for tablets using different SoCs and operating system from mid-2010, it looks like despite of recent design wins the company does not expect x86 tablets to gain a significant market share. Still, it should be noted that the company now has better chances to compete against ARM-based rivals with its Atom "Medfield" and "Cloverview/Clover Trail" system-on-chips thanks to support by both Google Android as well as Microsoft Windows 8.

"As Intel based tablets are shipping both on Windows 8 and Android, we expect to be able to participate in that fast growing market, but I do not think those numbers are going to be material this year. I think that just because of the start on, the timing of the start is going to be a slower ramp," said Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel.

But even though Intel does not expect high sales of tablets and smartphones based on its Atom products this year, twenty design wins - including wins with both Atom and Core microprocessors - clearly point to Intel's final ability to compete in the ultra-mobile field.

Tags: Intel, Atom, Medfield, Clover Trail, 32nm, Cloverview