210w ago - Will Intel's Atom chip make it into smartphones? That's an interesting question.

And it's one the company seemed intent on addressing at its investor conference earlier this week- and in particular, at a session focused on the next generation of Atom chips given by Anand Chandrasekher, head of the company's Ultra Mobility Group.

The next chip is called Moorestown, and it's due out early next year. While this chip is likely to be used mainly in products such as netbooks, Chandrasekher said it would also allow for a broader use in "mobile internet devices." That chip will be followed in 2011 by Medfield, which is the version really aimed at smartphones.

The smartphone market has been asking for a number of features that Intel chips haven't been able to provide, Chandrasekher acknowledged, such as lower total power, lower power when used, all-day battery life, performance, and broadband connectivity. Intel is taking a number of generations to get there.

The existing Atom chip (known as Menlow) takes the power the chip uses when it is active 10 times lower than the power of previous Intel chips, primarily designed for notebooks. The Moorestown version focused instead on bringing down the power the chip uses when it is idle (which is most of the time). He said Moorestown...