The last speed goal I heard was 20 GHz by 2010...

I agree a bit with what you are saying..."who- other than the high end user- will really NEED 20 GHz?!"

well... I predict there will be a lag between the speed available and what the common man has use for, but eventually "killer applications" will be developed that everyone wants that require that high speed... voice recognition, VR environments...etc...

as microsoft has proven again and again they can always use up whatever cpu intel can come up with... as the clock speed doubles the time between windows crashes is cut in half! :)

The job I have now is on a project to keep Moores law in business as long as possible- I had no idea just how hard the IC manufacturers work to constantly increase the speed of their chips... it is mind boggling! So is the amount they spend to keep speeding up...

One tactic in the future might be to move to a 3-D chip architecture- Not easy, but doable... The main barrier with that is thermal management... There will ALWAYS be the need for more speed- question is will there be enough of a market for it to make it profitable for the chip companies to produce it?

I recently bought a laptop- I intentionally went with the slowest chip offered by the manufacturer I chose to get my lap top from...that was 933MHz!! I would have been happy with 500MHz. One thing that supports the chipmakers in their neverending quest for speed may be the fact that computer makers only offer systems with the fastest chips...

Anyway... the number of people that really need chips with 20GHz speed may be small, but those that really need it will do amazing stuff with it- cure diseases, make new discoveries, and generally improve our quality of life- so I don't mind my computer being obsolete in a few months too much...