Semiconductor makers: Bend me, shape me ASUSTEK, a Taiwanese computer-maker, has a penchant for unusual, even wacky, ideas. At Computex, a trade fair in Taipei, its home city, this week, ASUSTeK was at it again. It showed off the Transformer Book Trio, which has two operating systems: the detachable screen is an Android tablet; once clipped to the keyboard it becomes a notebook PC, running either Google's Android (for play - think of all those apps) or Microsoft's Windows 8 (for work). Yet ASUSTeK's dual device says as much about the ambitions of Intel, the world's biggest maker of semiconductors, as about its own. Intel makes the chips powering both of the Trio's systems. It has dominated the market for the processors that power desktop and laptop PCs for decades. The Trio contains the latest version of its Core processor, known as Haswell, which Intel launched at Computex on June 4th. The screen contains an Atom, Intel's mobile chip: this week Intel demonstrated the next version, for devices due to go on sale later this year. For Intel it is vital that both these new chips succeed. That is because PC sales have been plummeting - by 14% in the year to the first quarter, says IDC, a research firm - and because Intel has struggled to get its chips into tablets and smartphones. Intel hopes its power-efficient Haswell chip will help revive PC sales, making possible thinner, quieter and faster machines, and allowing laptops to run for 50% longer. Just as important, Intel is pushing PCs that double as tablets. On stage in Taipei were "two-in-one" machines of many varieties, by many manufacturers, with touchscreens that detach, swivel or fold behind the keyboard. Better performance and greater flexibility may persuade some people to replace their PCs with younger, suppler models, and might even invigorate the hitherto droopy demand for Windows 8. But they will not relieve Intel of the need to succeed in smartphones and tablets. These are mostly powered by chip designs licensed from ARM, a much smaller, British firm, whose energy-efficient designs are ideal for mobile devices. Intel has been closing the power gap - though ARM, unveiling its own latest designs in Taipei, says it is still in the lead. This week Intel chalked up a notable victory when Samsung chose Atom for a new Android-powered tablet. Ian Drew, ARM's chief marketing officer, notes that Samsung has long used multiple suppliers. "We've always said that Intel will win sockets," he says, but, "It's a different business to the laptop business." Whereas Intel, with Microsoft, could call the shots in PCs, the Android market is more competitive: to make his point, Mr Drew lays out three cheap seven-inch tablets, each with a chip from a different supplier. The Atom may not be minuscule, but it is just one among many.