Intel's fortunes in the mobile device market may be turning around if a rumor that the chip giant has won a coveted spot in Samsung's next lineup of 10-inch Galaxy Tab tablets proves to be accurate.

"At least one version" of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 will be powered by an Intel "Clover Trail+"-generation Atom processor, Reuters cited an unnamed source as saying this week.

That sounds like other editions of Samsung's next-generation Android tablet will still sport an ARM-based System-on-a-Chip (Soc) just like their predecessors, possibly designed by Samsung itself as the tech giant has done in the past. However, Reuters reported that it was "unclear whether Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer of tablets after Apple, plans other versions of the 10-inch Galaxy Tab carrying its own, or other companies', processors."

At any rate, for Intel, earning even a shared place in a competitive Android tablet lineup like Samsung's could prove to be the foothold in the mobile space the company has been struggling to gain.

Other tech sites and blogs have also reported that Samsung will be using Intel SoCs in upcoming tablets, Reuters noted.

Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, said he believed the report to be true and that Intel's next-generation "Bay Trail" chips for mobile devices could get a boost from such a design win ahead of their third-quarter release.

"I believe that we will see Intel silicon in an upcoming Galaxy Tab 10. This bodes well for Intel and for Bay Trail as they would hold the incumbent spot," Moorhead said.

Intel's dual-core, 32-nanometer Clover Trail+ processors come in a few flavors and Reuters didn't indicate which one the source was tipping for the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. In the mix, it would seem, are the 1.2GHz Atom Z2520, the 1.6GHz Atom Z2560, and the 2.0GHz Atom Z2580 the last one being particularly intriguing because it's already being used in smartphones, not tablets, made by Lenovo and ZTE.

As for Bay Trail, Moorhead has held that the coming generation of ultra-low power Atom SoCs could potentially open the floodgates for Intel in the mobile space when it arrives later this year. Those next-gen, 22nm SoCs are being built with Intel's most current manufacturing technology, which means they'll be a step up from Clover Trail in terms of energy usagea key point for mobile device makers concerned with battery life.

Intel is also moving to a 64-bit instruction set with Bay Trail and will be significantly boosting the SoC's graphics performance with the addition of an Ivy Bridge-class GPU which supports DirectX 11.

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