Samsung confirms Intel chipset for Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet

Samsung Electronics confirmed that its new 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 3 tablet will have an Intel chipset inside, handing the chipmaker a major mobile design win as it seeks to gain more share in the market.

The design win had been rumored for a few weeks but Samsung confirmed the news to several media outlets. The company announced a new 8-inch version of its Galaxy Tab line powered by its own 1.5 GHz Exynos dual-core processor, but said the 10.1-inch one is running a dual-core 1.6 GHz Intel chip. It was not immediately clear what kind of Intel chipset was inside the gadget, though reports have suggested it is Intel's Clover Trail+ silicon. 

"In order to meet the demand from our vendor/carrier partners and provide a consistent high-quality experience for customers, Samsung has sourced components, including chipsets, from trusted partners," Samsung said.

While the tablet design win will likely not yield as many shipments as a mass market smartphone would, it is still a significant win for Intel. The world's largest chipset firm has vowed under the new leadership of CEO Brian Krzanich to be more aggressive in mobile as it seeks to catch up to companies that use designs from ARM, including Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), Nvidia, Samsung Electronics, Broadcom and MediaTek.

Samsung uses Intel processors for its Ativ-branded tablets running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows 8 platform, but has long opted to use chipsets based on architecture from ARM Holdings for its Android devices, which is why an Intel design win is so significant. Samsung is the world's second-largest tablet maker after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). Intel and Samsung work closely together on the open-source Tizen platform as well.

In other chipset news, ARM announced a new chipset line at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, designed for mid-range smartphones. The company unveiled its Cortex A-12 processor, which is optimized for smartphones that sell for between $200 and $350, a category which ARM expects to be half a billion devices a year by 2015.

For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this The Verge article
- see this Reuters article
- see this separate The Verge article
- see this Engadget article

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