Is "Moore's Law" still in effect?

Question

Since the 80's I've watched as computers doubled quickly in power about every year and a half. Through the years, I began to base my buying habits on this trend, waiting for the price of technology to go down because of relative obsolescence before buying.

That being said, I bought a 2.4 Ghz computer in 2005 thinking this trend would continue. The current computers are 3.(something) + dual core and advances seem to be coming very slowly. Now I realize we've reached a kind of atomic impasse with transistors and are waiting for nanotechnology to improve.

I guess what I'm asking is this: Have there been any recent breakthroughs in nanotechnology or maybe super-conductivity that might get this apparent log jam out of the way?

Answer 1

Keep in mind the drop in nanometers

90nm
65nm
45nm

Check out EUV Lithography technology

or just go to Intels website

http://www.intel.com/technology/architecture-silicon/index.htm

Its the flash memory companies that are using the cutting edge.

Answer 2

It has slowed somewhat in that they don't necessarily double in power every year and a half, but don't be fooled by the Ghz myth. A 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 was available in 2002, and now we have 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duos. One might think that the dual core is the only advantage, but that would be very very wrong. The big innovation now is enabling chips to do more work per clock cycle, meaning newer chips are have much more power than older chips, even when running at the same Ghz frequency. Even in applications that don't take advantage of the second core, a Core 2 Duo at 2.4Ghz will be at least twice as fast as the 2.4Ghz Pentium 4, usually even more, simply because of the architectural improvements.