No exponential can go forever! Physics can't be cheated, yet if you listen to the senior technologist and managers at Intel they seem to not want to admit the fact that they end has come,
The cost and performance have ended, the only reason Intel appears to be benefit is that x86 monopoly.
Intel does lead on scaling and as such will run off the cliff if it hasn't already at 10nm.
Intel has no infrastructure, no product plans, no factories setup, nothing to leverage the high yields and revenue possibility of the older nodes. It has always been the next generation or nothing, and there is soon to be nothing.
IoT, 3DNand, 5G, and all the other things can work equally and possibly better on the older nodes then on 14nm or smaller nodes.
So if the Roadrunner has run off the cliff like in the cartoons, we all know what happens next, LOL