Warren East, chief executive officer of ARM, the company that supplies technology for microprocessors the power mobile phones and low-power devices, said that the market of personal computers in tablet form-factor could reach 60 million units in 2011. In addition, the head of ARM no longer believes that Atom-based system-on-chips are actually competitive rivals.

The head of ARM confesses, Intel Corp.'s Atom-based SoCs - such as Moorestown (Atom Z600) or Oak Trail - can successfully compete against ARM-based system-on-chips in numerous designs. However, Mr. East no longer expects Intel's x86 to power 50% of slates in the coming year. Quite otherwise, according to the chief executive of ARM, Intel's offerings are not that competitive against modern ARM-powered designs.

"Atom designs are just not good enough in terms of power consumption [right now]. Intel knows this," said Warren East in an interview with the Financial Times.

At present ARM powers the majority of tablets that are available on the market, including the most popular tablet to date, the Apple iPad. However, HP has already announced an Intel and Windows 7-based slate PC and more companies are projected to follow.

It is noteworthy that Warren East is even more optimistic about performance of tablet PC market than Gartner, which claims that 54 million slates will be sold in 2011. According to the head of ARM, there will from 30 to 60 million computers in slate form-factor sold next year.

Tags: Intel, Cortex, x86