Intel has taken the wraps off a family of tiny processors for handheld devices, called Atom -- also destined for low cost notebooks and desktop PCs which may run Linux.

Get ready for a new brand in the already cluttered world of tech marketing. Intel has chosen Atom as the name for its super small low-power processor formerly known as Silverthorne, due to be launched during next month's IDF in Shanghai.

Silverthorne - sorry, we mean Atom - is the child of a ground-up effort to create a new processor for the ultra-mobile market, ranging from UMPCs to mobile Internet devices. There's even the chance it could pop up in a future generation of the iPhone.

Small wonder: Intel's own concept mobile Internet device typifies the products that will run on its Atom 'Silverthorne' processorHowever, Intel also sees Atom as becoming the powerplant of "a new class of simple and affordable Internet-centric computers" including notebooks and desktops, which Intel has respectively dubbed ‘netbooks' and ‘net-tops'. These devices will run a beefed-up variant of Silverthorne formerly codenamed Diamondville. (The name change will no doubt please the guys running the Neil Diamond tribute Web site of the same name).