Intel seems determined to put Atom chips in every single device that needs a processor, as the company's latest roadmap for the Atom seems to suggest, Intel announcing their intention to go as low as 15nm in terms of manufacturing process.

What is important to note about this slide, apart from the change in manufacturing technology, is Intel's intention to promote this as SoC (System-on-a-chip) solutions.

This term is used in order to refer to processors that packs all the usual components inside a computer into a single integrated circuit, a similar approach with that employed by ARM chip manufacturers.

As before, future Atom processors will be assigned to different series that designate the type of devices they are built for, N standing for netbook, D for nettop, the Z series being destined to go in handheld devices, CE designating consumer electronics while E series Atom chips will be used in embedded systems.

Another thing interesting to note is that Intel plans to increase the number of chips available as the process technology goes smaller, the N series going from only one chip to no less then five processors, when the 15nm technology will be employed.

The Z and E series will have the largest number of processors, each with six different models, underlining the importance of this market segments in Intel's future plans.

This all seems pretty logical to me since Intel needs to combat all the ARM based chips used inside every-day devices such as smartphones or set-top boxes, going for a much smaller manufacturing process enabling Intel to lower the power consumption of their Atom offerings.

However, the roadmap didn't state when does the company plan on releasing these processors, so we might have to take a while for 15nm Atom chips to start arriving to market. (via slashgear)