Intel has struggled to get its chips into smartphones and tablets, markets that are dominated today by processor designs from Intel's U.K. rival ARM Holdings.

Intel had been working closely with Nokia to develop phones based on its Meego operating system, but Nokia pulled out of the partnership to focus on Windows phones instead.

"That was, in hindsight, perhaps the wrong partner to have picked," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at the company's investor conference Tuesday, in perhaps the biggest understatement of the day.

Intel has taken the reference designs it created with Nokia and is shopping them around to other manufacturers, Otellini said. "We plan to have Medfield phones in the market early next year," he said.

The device Intel showed on stage looked much like an iPhone. It was running a version of Google's Android OS and displaying high-definition video. The company also has reference designs for 7-inch and 10-inch Medfield tablets.