Chipset vendor Atmel reportedly has beaten Taiwan-based rival ILI Technology (Ilitek) to win orders for touch-panel controller ICs to be used in Amazon's new tablet PCs for 2012, according to industry sources.

Ilitek and fellow IC vendors Capella Microsystems (Taiwan) and Sitronix Technology are currently included in the supply chain of Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire, the sources noted.

International IC players were reluctant to take part in the previous bids for Amazon's IC orders considering that the IC orders from the e-book readers should be in relatively small volumes, said the sources.

Seeing the prospect that Amazon is likely to become the number two tablet PC vendor globally after Apple with annual shipments exceeding 5-7 million units, international IC players have shown interest in winning Amazon's IC orders, the sources commented.