It was first mentioned earlier today that Intel apparently weren't going to allow NVIDIA its break into the Atom market as easily as the green giant first thought. The impression was given that Intel were not going to allow NVIDIA (or any other company) to purchase Atom processors without buying as a bundle, paired with a 945GSE or 945GC chipset.

This would be a nasty obstacle for NVIDIA if it were true as the Intel chipsets would be a significant extra expense yet completely useless to them. Further to that, this report at Digitimes stated that Intel also had no desire to validate NVIDIA's Ion platform for Atom powered netbooks/nettops.

But now it appears these claims are incorrect; a brief update just posted over at Nordic Hardware shows that Intel has contacted them and confirmed that there is no truth to the above and vendors are given full rights to use the Ion platform as well as the option of purchasing stand-alone Atom processors or bundles.

Looks like NVIDIA can rest easy after all.