Atom was created for the netbook market, where the target for low power consumption was significantly higher than it was for smartphones and from that tablets.

Atom was created for the netbook market, where the target for low power consumption was significantly higher than it was for smartphones and from that tablets. How many netbooks shipped with ARM? Atom did what was necessary to win that race, even if it wasn't prepared for the subsequent very low power device explosion. The Atom chips themselves are actually remarkably efficient -- with a TDP down to 0.65W for some models, well in the ARM territory -- but Intel never bothered to make efficient supporting circuitry, while failing to full incorporate it into a SoC. ARM is improving dramatically because it became a critical field with some low hanging advances that were possible. The pace of innovation is impressive, but it has slowed dramatically in the past year -- recall that the Tegra 2 was demoed over a year ago. Today, the high point of the ARM ecosystem is still the Tegra 2. People today are doing the sort of naive extrapolation that we've seen over and over again.