Medfield, the single-core Intel chip that is due in the second quarter of 2012, is designed specifically for Android based Smartphones and ultra-thin Android tablets running on the Ice cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) OS. However, as Medfield faces problems in terms of performance and power-saving in comparison to competing processors from ARM, Windows 8 tablet manufacturers are slated to use Clover Trail, a successor Atom chip from Intel set for launch in the third quarter of 2012. Clover Trail will offer dual-core versions, hence expected to be more attractive to the tablet manufacturing field.

Acer and Lenovo have joined Windows 8 tablet makers Dell, and HP in an attempt to pitch against Apple, whose iPad according to DigiTimes, occupied around 60 percent of the tablet market in 2011. Samsung, at the Windows BUILD Conference last year, showed off a tablet that ran on the Intel atom chip instead of the ARM processors expected. Windows 8 will be powered by chips by Intel as well as ARM.