Intel may even sell the bundle for less than the cost of making it, known as predatory pricing, in order to lock Nvidia and its Ion platform out of the netbook market.

And none of that violates U.S. antitrust law, a leading legal expert told on Wednesday.

"Intel is not obligated to deal with a competitor at all," said Michael Cooper, a lawyer with the Washington D.C. office of the firm Bryan Cave and a former anti-trust prosecutor for the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. "It can set its own terms, even if it is the only one making the [Atom] chip."

Facing looming competition from Intel in the high-end graphics chip market, Nvidia is counterattacking in the netbook market with its Ion, which is considered more powerful than Intel's offering,

But uptake of Ion has been limited. Since its release earlier this year, only Lenovo Group Ltd. and Acer Inc. have announced plans to