Dozens of tablets, some priced as low as US$99, are expected out by year's end running on new Intel Atom processors, which began shipping Wednesday.
Bay Trail represents a reboot for Intel in the tablet market after its previous tablet chips failed. Bay Trail will go up against ARM processors, which power the iPad, Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus and other notable tablets. The company is trying to convince attendees at the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco that it is starting anew with Bay Trail, and to dispel notions that its tablet chips are watered-down versions of power-hungry x86 PC chips.
The latest Atom Z3000 series processors are for tablets with screens sizes of 7 inches to 10 inches. The tablets will offer more than eight hours of battery life to users watching high-definition video and also weeks of standby power, thanks to new features in the Bay Trail chips, said Chris Walker, general manager of tablets at Intel's Mobile Communications Group, in an interview this week before the Intel Developer Forum opened in San Francisco.

Android tablets with the chips will chips will start at $99, said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich during an IDF keynote Tuesday. The first wave of tablets will have the Windows 8.1 OS, quad-core Atom Z3700 processors and start at around $350, with the less-expensive Android tablets appearing at the end of the year and running on either the quad-core chip or the dual-core Z3600 chips, which will only work with Android tablets.
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