The ever-evolving technology industry is shaped by the discontinuities that new research and products cast up. Such discontinuities drive large changes in products and their architectures, and in some cases create entirely new categories of products.

Based on research in the semiconductor, computer and IT industries, this article describes how the mechanisms that drive these changes work. It traces: how incremental improvements in a system’s components impact on the performance and design of systems; how these incremental improvements in components can lead to discontinuities in system design through their impact on design trade-offs; and how these incremental improvements in components can cause the components to become applicable to completely new systems. Simply stated, incremental improvements in components are a major source of technological discontinuities in whole systems.

The author also points out that all components are not undergoing the same rate of change, with some changing faster than others. The article explains how the model can be used to understand and predict the future performance of systems and the possibilities of discontinuities occurring in them.

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