Industry data, for example, suggest that the introduction of improvements in calculation speed accelerated in the late 1990s and may have decelerated around the beginning of this decade. However, the exact dates are difficult to pin down, and they tend to vary with the type of semiconductor.
In addition, any  BIS Review 1/2006  3  deceleration in the pace of introducing faster semiconductors may have been offset by innovative efforts to reduce energy consumption or to improve wireless capabilities. With the growing use of mobile, battery-powered communications technologies and computers, energy consumption and connectivity may be just as important as speed.