That's an ultra-qualified "yes". Hardware isn't magic. Once you've got a Turing-complete device, software can cover the rest. However, HW implementations of functionality are 'better' than software in the sense of being either faster or more power-efficient. (Or some trade-off.) Our chips are better because we can throw more customized hardware to side-step (slow; power-hungry) software implementations. We have access to more customized HW because we have more transistors.
If you're asking long-run questions in terms of HW/SW stack performance, I strongly suspect we've got another 3-10 doublings with "just more HW". If any of the post-patterning mechanisms pan out we could, theoretically, get another 15-20 doublings by going all the way down to atoms. After that ... I dunno; sort of the realm of scifi at that point.
Thanks that all makes good sense. I was curious about "post-pattering mechanisms"? Is this a new area in fab process technology? Might you have some links? Another 15-20 doublings from where we are today is pretty awesome.
Patterning is the use of multiple masks to get fine features smaller than the wavelength of light you're using where in previous larger feature nodes one mask sufficed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_patterning
It's very expensive in terms of tooling, since you need a lot more more masks, and production time spend in lithography steps. See this comment in this discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19570724 for a bit more.
If you're asking long-run questions in terms of HW/SW stack performance, I strongly suspect we've got another 3-10 doublings with "just more HW". If any of the post-patterning mechanisms pan out we could, theoretically, get another 15-20 doublings by going all the way down to atoms. After that ... I dunno; sort of the realm of scifi at that point.