Building computer chips is a largely physics-dominated game and, as such, those that gravitate to the semiconductor market are experts in building better grade silicon wafers, depositing iron-oxide on those silicon wafers at close-to-atomic levels and refining the whole process to reduce costs.

Semiconductors need to obey the rules of science. Simple as that. But, since the invention of the microprocessor a good couple of decades ago, top innovators such as Intel, IBM and AMD have known that the day would come where it was impossible to continue building quicker processors by clocking the frequencies upwards.