Intel successfully pushed the industry to accept the term "netbook" last year to describe the then-emerging class of mini-notebook computers that, for the first time, were offered at discount, rather than premium, prices.

Intel's Atom CPU and its closely-associated graphics chipset now dominate more than 90% of the netbook market. And the last shadow hanging over the use of the term netbook was lifted on Monday with the announcement by Intel that it .

As upstarts to Intel's near-monopoly, Freescale and fellow ARM silicon vendor Qualcomm Inc., argue that the term netbook simply does not do justice to the .

"While "netbook" is not a bad term, it has really come to mean a mini-notebook that uses an x86 chip and runs Windows," Burchers said. "There's a need for a product category that fits between a smartphone and a netbook."

Intel spokesman Bill Calder differs.