Consumers won’t see a “Qualcomm Inside” sticker on new Windows Mobile phones, but the chip supplier is playing a big role in powering the first crop of phones based on Microsoft’s new operating system.

Microsoft announced on Tuesday, the first phones to carry the Windows Phone brand and run the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system–which offers Adobe Flash support, an upgraded browser, and menus that can be navigated with a finger. AT&T has already announced the smartphones, with dozens more expected to be rolled out by the end of the year.

The Tilt 2 and Pure both use Qualcomm MSM7000 series processors, as do a number of other new Windows Mobile phones. These chips typically run at 528GHz–a fairly common speed grade for mobile phones.

But it’s at the high end where things get interesting. The Apple iPhone-like HTC HD2 and Acer neoTouch use Qualcomm’s latest-and-greatest processor, the 1GHz Snapdragon, also known as the QSD8250.