Intel is said to be working on a reference design guideline that would allow its hardware partners to develop an HD video decoder and integrate it into Intel's Pineview desktop platform alongside a new Atom D410 or D519 CPU, Fudzilla reported on Tuesday. The current desktop Pineview platforms are not capable of HD video playback, and thus far, only NVIDIA is offering such a capability via its Ion chipset.

Unlike Ion, however, the third-party chipsets are expected to cost much less, as they won't be able to enhance gaming performance and general purpose applications. At the same time, the aim is for the third-party chips not to add significantly to the heat generation and power consumption of the Atom, as Ion does.

HP and Lenovo have considered adding HD video decoders to their Atom-powered desktop offerings.