Intel has announced the brand name Atom for its processor chips aimed at UMPCs and other mobile devices. These are the company's smallest chips to date with the lowest power consumption, according to Intel.

Atom is the official name for the chips formerly codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville, both of which have been designed to offer a decent level of performance while cutting power consumption for compact new form factors.

Due to ship in Q2, Atom chips are built using a 45nm fabrication process and will have clock speeds up to 1.8GHz, with typical power consumption in the range of 0.6W to 2.5W, Intel said.

Although all the chips will carry the Atom brand name, those codenamed Silverthorne will target the smallest systems, dubbed mobile Internet devices (MIDs), while Diamondville parts are aimed at low-cost, Internet-centric mobile computing devices Intel has labelled "netbooks".

"This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry," Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney said in a statement.