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"Tiny semiconductor particles known as "quantum dots" have been used in a sensor that could make for mobile phone cameras that outperform larger cousins."

John Markoff reports on the impending end of Moore's Law. It's a well-written story, but it's one that could have been told--and has been--many times before.

The shrinking of the transistor has approached fundamental physical limits. Increasingly, transistor manufacturers grapple with subatomic effects, like the tendency for electrons to "leak" across material boundaries. The leaking electrons make it more difficult to know when a transistor is in an on or off state, the information that makes electronic computing possible. They have also led to excess heat, the bane of the fastest computer chips.