[citation][nom]IClassStriker[/nom]I don't get it, they are making smaller and smaller chips even though they could improve on the current ones. I would be fine if they still make 32nm die, but add more cores and higher clock speeds. Most computers have sufficient cooling anyways.[/citation]
1) to compete with ARM on the low end Intel NEEDs to get smaller parts in order to lower material, heat, and battery costs. Sure, they could cram a lot more transisters in a CPU on 32nm before having heat issues, but someone needs to pay for the costs of developing the small tech for atom and other extremely low power CPU technologies that compete with ARM, and Intel has decided a long time ago that it will be the desktop CPUs that will pave the way because desktop users do not mind paying more for the product, while devices that use Atom products are extremely price sensitive. I mean, imagine how power efficient a 22nm Atom would be? On a 32nm process they are down to 3.5W TDP, and they operate much lower than that when under a normal load. But they are not on 22nm because it is cheaper to do these on the old fabs.
2) More cores does not help 90+% of the people who use a computer. 2 cores is enough for web browsing and media consumption (hell, you can even game pretty decently on a duel core). Civilian applications tend to only use 1-2 cores, and heavy applications have a hard time using more than 4. If you need more than 4 cores then there are other solutions (SBE, Xeon) which can bring you many more cores, and duel CPU configurations (I think the new Xeon CPUs can even do quad configurations). So if you need more cores, there are solutions for you, but all the cores in the world are not going to help you one bit until software takes advantage of it, so other solutions must be found.
3) It is cheaper and easier to shrink the die than it is to modify the instruction set (though that is always happening as well). Once we hit the 8-12nm wall of CPU die shrinks we will begin to see major changes to code, how code is processed, and a complete revolution to the x86 architecture and instructions. We will also begin to see 3D/Stacked CPU designs, and other more creative approaches to getting things more streamlined. but we are still several years away from that.