There has been speculation for a long time that VIA has been producing a new dual-core Nano, and CNet via Chinese site HKEPC has more information. We know that VIA’s C7-M processor is used in HP’s 2133 Mini-Note, which came before the current range of netbooks sporting Intel’s Atom processor, but that chip has been no match for Intel’s offering.

The low-power dual-core processor that VIA are dubbing the “Nano 3000″ looks to be something that can rival Intel’s almost monopoly-esque Atom processor, with power consumption that should be far less than the Atom. It will also reportedly feature SSE4 instruction support (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4), integer/floating point enhancements, and improved internal cache performance.

The dual-core version of the Nano 3000, which may use a Fujitsu 45-nanometer or TSMC 40-nanometer manufacturing process, could start shipping out samples this quarter, with a full release then to follow later this year. If all goes to plan, this should be a huge boost for the already flourishing netbook market and will also reduce the mundanity for us netbook bloggers in typing “features the Intel Atom…” for virtually every new netbook release!