Source confirms Intel's big score: Samsung tablet using an Atom chip
Intel's long years investing in mobile processors are about to pay off with its biggest win to date. We've confirmed that the next Samsung Galaxy tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, will have an Intel Atom chip based on the Clover Trail code name.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the payoff of a two-year campaign. Intel first laid out its tablet requirements in its public Windows 8 tablet checklist in April 2012, then bet that Clover Trail Atoms could deliver ARM-like battery life in slates by that fall. The May 2013 Silvermont architecture reveal showed the roadmap getting more serious about mobile just weeks ago.
The context makes this design win sting for rivals: reporting earlier in May confirmed Intel lost the iPhone slot and ceded the smartphone chip market to a swarm of ARM licensees. A confirmed Atom placement in Samsung's flagship Galaxy Tab 3 — picked up within days by PC World, GigaOM, eWeek and others — is Intel's biggest mobile victory to date, and it comes at the world's largest Android device maker.
First-order effects
- Samsung ships a marquee Android tablet on x86 silicon for the first time in the Galaxy line, giving Intel a volume reference design it can show other OEMs instead of Windows-only Clover Trail placements.
- Qualcomm and the ARM ecosystem lose exclusivity inside Samsung's tablet lineup, forcing their account teams to defend sockets they previously took for granted at the top Android vendor.
Second-order effects
- Samsung gains dual-source leverage over its own component suppliers — Exynos and Qualcomm now price against a credible Intel alternative, pressuring margins across the Android tablet supply chain.
- Intel's pitch shifts from 'we match ARM' to 'we beat ARM on process,' with Clover Trail's 32nm win serving as proof point ahead of the Silvermont-generation parts it just unveiled.
Third-order effects
- If the Galaxy Tab 3 sells on battery life parity, tablets become the beachhead where x86 establishes itself against ARM after losing the smartphone socket — restructuring the mobile chip market around two viable instruction sets rather than an ARM monopoly.
- A successful Intel-in-Samsung precedent invites other Android OEMs to second-source processors, eroding the single-vendor relationships that have defined the ARM licensing model since smartphones began.
The trend: Mobile computing is moving from an ARM-only silicon base toward genuine x86-versus-ARM competition, with tablets — not phones — as the battleground where Intel finally buys in.