Faster Commoditization In Cars


Sensors are at the heart of assisted and autonomous driving, but even before these devices hit the road the average selling prices of these components will have to fall far enough to be affordable to a mass audience. Achieving economies of scale is what has made the semiconductor industry successful over the past half century. It has enabled semiconductors to proliferate and for electronics ... » read more

Evolution Of The MCU


Microcontrollers are taking on a variety of new and much more complex computing tasks, evolving from standalone chips to more highly integrated devices that can rival complex microprocessors. Microcontroller units (MCUs) are being designed into everything from assisted and autonomous driving to smart cards. They often are the central processing elements for a slew of connected devices that i... » read more

MCU Sales Up in 2017 And 2018


Microcontroller (MCU) sales are expected to grow over 9% this year while units increase over 16%. IoT and automotive are the major reason for the growth in general MCUs; however, the product group has been transitioning into several distinct segments that are being buried within the data of the broad MCU market. Over the past five years total MCU revenues have essentially remained flat; however... » read more

How To Build A Trillion Connected Things


A trillion is a big number. A broadcaster reads about 1,000 words in a five-minute newscast. At that rate, it would take 6,000 years at that rate to finish a trillion-word newscast. We’re on a path in the technology industry to build and connect a trillion devices in the coming years. How are we going to do that, given the scale and sheer size of the task? Is it achievable in the time f... » read more

The Great Skills Race


The next phase of the technology race will be fought with qualified people—but not necessarily the same people in the same markets or with the same skill sets. For the past half century, technology wars have been won and lost with inexpensive labor and increasing amounts of automation. This can be traced from the United States in the 1960s to Japan in the 1970s, Korea starting in the mid-... » read more

The Future Of Human/Machine Interaction Is Personal


What comes to mind when you think of a human/machine interface? Something close at hand like your smartphone’s GPS and the ATMs at your bank? Something futuristic like flying cars and jetpacks? Something dangerous like menacing cyborgs? As technology becomes more pervasive in our everyday activities, there are a growing number of human/machine interfaces. They also are becoming more personal.... » read more

Thinking Much Bigger


For the better part of the past decade the focus has been on integrating an increasing number of smaller components on a piece of silicon. It's time to start thinking much bigger. While there is still plenty of work to be done building more powerful processors, or networks of connected processors on a chip or in a package, new opportunities are opening up in markets such as automotive, medic... » read more

Systems Of Packages


The shift from IP blocks to subsystems, with pre-integrated and pre-verified IP, has never lived up to the initial hype. That doesn't mean the concept isn't valid, though. The problem with subsystems, as originally conceived, is they were far too limited for widespread adoption. When this idea first began surfacing in the early pat of the Millennium, this all made sense because the number o... » read more

Get Ready For In-Mold Electronics


Imagine inserting the electronics into a product without using a printed circuit board, a module, or even a system-in-package. That's the promise of in-mold electronics (IME), a technology that has been around for years, but which is just beginning to see wider adoption. The technology is related to conductive inks and transparent conductive films. The IME manufacturing process is said to pr... » read more

Is The IoT Making Progress In Business?


Mention the Internet of Things and most people think about smart appliances or wearable electronics. But one of the biggest growth opportunities involves the digitalization of the workplace, and this is where a business case can be made—or lost—for widespread adoption of connected devices. A new Economist Intelligence Unit study found that 21% of executives surveyed believe the IoT alrea... » read more

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