Intel announced Oak Trail last year in response to the growing demand for tablets. Then last month, on its price list, but devices running the chip are not yet available.

Oak Trail tablets will become available around the time of the Computex trade show, which will be held in Taipei between May 31 and June 4. Computex acts as a springboard for major device makers to show off and launch products.

"Oak Trail tablets are expected to start hitting shelves in May and throughout 2011," said an Intel spokeswoman in an e-mail.

She declined to comment on specific customer designs and launch times.

A number of companies, including Lenovo, Fujitsu, Samsung and Motion Computing, have already shown off Oak Trail tablets running Windows 7.