Intel demos a slew of tablets as it looks to gain the upper hand

CHIPMAKER Intel sought to put clear blue water between itself and its rivals AMD and ARM on Wednesday by playing up its tablet credentials and cross-operating system support.

In a press conference Chipzilla assured its customers that it will help support a wide range of tablets and netbooks suitable for every use case in an initiative it called 'companion computing'.

To ram home the point, Intel executives demoed Atom-powered devices running the Android, Windows and Meego operating systems, as well as various hardware designs including sliders, dual screen machines, detachable screen devices and more.

General manager of netbooks and tablets Doug Davis reiterated the firm's promise to get to 14nm process chips by 2014 at faster than Moore's Law speed and highlighted the low power, high performance advantages of Intel's Medfield, Cedar Trail and Oak Trail families of processors.

Combining software with the silicon hardware is another area where Intel thinks it has an advantage, with the Smart Connect and Rapid Start technologies it announced on Tuesday, as well as Appup, PC Sync and other tools, all touted as ways to make life a lot easier for the end user.

With AMD having thrown its own hat into the tablet ring in a slightly less spectacular fashion this morning, the next year or two is likely to be an interesting time in the tablet market. µ