Intel announced its new line of processors designed and built especially for low-power ultra mobile computer systems. The line of processors is called Atom and Intel claims they are it's smallest processors and are built using the world’s smallest transistors.

The Atom processors were previously codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville. These parts are manufactured using 45nm processes and maintain Intel Core 2 duo instruction sets despite the small size. The Atom processors will have a thermal design power of 0.6-2.5 watts and scale to 1.8GHz. Systems using Atom processors will arrive later in 2008.

The chip measures less than 25mm square and is packed with 47 million transistors. "This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors," said Intel Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sean Maloney. "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."

Via Intel.