The trajectory of desktop PC performance increases of the last two years will not slow in the near future, but actually accelerate, based on an expected announcement by Intel Corp. at the International Solid State Circuits Conference. Intel will present a paper today detailing a portion of a microprocessor chip that has performed at up to 10 gigahertz at room temperature —- the fastest calculating speed yet reported for a microprocessor.

Last November, the industry’s annual international technology road map for semiconductors revealed that the industry is able to shrink one crucial dimension of modern microprocessors far faster than other dimensions: the physical gate length.