The chip technology is an older process using 110nm technology. There are already several companies working on 40nm technology which will be more power efficient and be significantly faster per chip.
110nm is old news. Butterfly labs do 65 nm and KnC does 28 nm. I guess 110 was a test run really, or they lacked access to plants that could do smaller chips.
The avalon chips the author is describing in the article are 110nm I believe.