Right. Technology is not the issue here. Technology already can give us a quadcore x86 CPU in a smartphone - the question is just how much are you willing to

Right. Technology is not the issue here. Technology already can give us a quadcore x86 CPU in a smartphone - the question is just how much are you willing to pay for it. As long as Intel can keep making chips 5x bigger and sell them for 20x the profit, they will. Consumer demand doesn't appear to be slowing for this; embedded CPUs are simply opening a new market for portable, low power devices with acceptable performance. Embedded system-on-a-chip margins are very low, and thus the shipment volume of smart phone and tablet CPU shipments has to be very, VERY high before it can begin to bring Intel the sort of profit margins they already enjoy for x86 consumer parts.