Intel plans to spread out Atom chip

Intel's Atom chip, which has primarily been used in netbooks, will increasingly be deployed in new areas, including embedded applications, home monitoring, smartphones and automobiles.

The news comes on the heels of Intel's stellar first quarter results. On a conference call, chief executive Paul Otellini mentioned plans for dual-core Atom chips. The plan is to develop "derivatives of our new Atom processor for many new market segments," said Otellini.

"The next innovation coming out on Atom is dual-core, which comes out in the second quarter. So that will ramp for the holiday season this year and I think that will be a very attractive product. Then in early Q1 we have another integration at much lower power product coming out that is a derivative of it for SanDisk netbook business. You will see us use technology to make the platform a bit better each time or to integrate more features and make it cheaper," he said.

For more on this story, see Intel plans to sprinkle its Atom chip everywhere on ZDNet.com.