Centrino Atom to power at least 20 MIDs
Back at CES 2008, Intel handed out fact sheets announcing that "Menlow-based MIDs and UMPCs from Aigo, Asus, BenQ, Clarion, Compal, Digifriends, EB, Gigabyte, Lenovo, LG-E, LiteOn, Quanta, Toshiba, USI, and Willcom" were on display at its technology showcase. Though some of them didn’t actually make an appearance (see MID round-up list), it turns out that Intel was holding out on revealing the full list of MIDs expected to begin shipping later this quarter.
More names will probably be added to the list throughout the year, so the 20 MID vendors that were either mentioned or in attendance at IDF in Shanghai this week could just be appetizers to hold us over while the main course is being prepared.
Nonetheless, according to Linux Devices:
The MID vendors include Aigo, Asus, BenQ, Clarion, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Hanbit, KJS, Lenovo, LG-E, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sophia Systems, TabletKiosk, Toshiba, USI, WiBrain, and Yuk Yung.
Most of these companies have been uttered alongside the phrase "mobile internet device" in the past, while others have been more commonly associated with UMPCs. Sharp is said to be manufacturing the Willcom prototype and Yuk Yung is part of the Korean MID alliance (as are Hanbit and Wibrain), so the real new players seem to be KJS, NEC, and Sophia Systems.
Not included in the new list are Compal, Digifriends, EB, LiteOn, and Quanta. Technically, then, there are at least 25 different MIDs on the way.
How many of the units will actually shed their concept label and actually make it to market (or to the U.S.) remains to be seen.
See also: Intel MID round-up at CES 2008
UPDATE 04.05.08: UMPCPortal points to a slide from the Intel press pages that shows a slightly different list of 20 vendors. Replacing KJS and Yuk Yung are Hitachi and Viliv (remember the "UMPC revolution"?), bringing the new number of known MID manufacturers up to 27.
