Are technology improvement rates of knowledge industries following Moore's law? An empirical study of microprocessor, mobile cellular, and genome sequencing technologies

Abstract

Critical technologies in knowledge economy may advance at an exponential rate of improvement. The best known example of such exponential trend of improvement has been provided by Moore's law. First, this paper shows that Moore's law is still valid by examining the development of microprocessor technology for the period from 1971 to 2010. Second, this paper finds that such exponential rate of improvement can be found in other technologies such as mobile cellular and genome sequencing technologies. However, their exponential improvement rates vary from technology to technology. Lastly, this paper examines whether the improvement rate has been slowed down in recent years. This paper finds that the improvement rate has been slowed down in the clock speed of microprocessors. However, there is no such downward trend in transistor density, million instructions per second and mobile cellular technology. On the other hand, the improvement rate became higher over the last ten years in genome sequencing technology which is in the early stages of development.