Coming soon: A technology-driven revolution

06/01/1999

The remarkable growth of the semiconductor industry over the past half-century has depended on a constant stream of new, high-volume end-use products. As we emerge from a severe slump, the nature of the market is changing once again. Pieces are falling into place in new and sometimes surprising ways for a major revolution in end uses for electronic devices. While the PC remains a major market for chips, we are seeing a transition back to consumer electronics as a significant industry driver, as it was in the early days of solid-state color TVs, VCRs, and pocket radios. But today`s picture is much more complex. Interconnectedness and portability are driving much of the shift.

The standalone electronic box in a rack or on a desk, for work or amusement (whether a TV set or PC), is giving way to devices connected to the Internet and/or intranet(s), and to a wide assortment of portable devices, from pocket phones and notebook computers to GPS receivers and tiny TV sets.

The consumer segment already has moved far beyond serving as a backwater for outmoded semiconductor technology. The market for video game players has grown so large that it is now driving some of the most advanced chip designs to enable super-realistic, complex scenes and more dynamic action. To gain an edge in this market, Sony and Toshiba are now planning to build fabs (actually mini-fabs) dedicated to powerful chips (including 128-bit microprocessors) for their graphics-based systems.

Even though game machines sell in the tens of millions, their role may be taken over in the future by alternate media, such as home "infotainment" centers for interactive game playing as well as many other activities. Television is going digital, set-top boxes are being redesigned to allow multiple uses, particularly Internet access, and personal computers will be linked to them (or built into them) in the future. Phone and cable systems are upgrading their plants, and an assortment of wireless technologies are contending with them to deliver a rich smorgasbord of electronic services. Supplying the advanced chips needed to put these communications systems in place is currently one of the fastest growing segments of the market.

This multifaceted infrastructure will bring a revolution in many of our activities - shopping, entertainment, and communicating with friends, family and colleagues. Interconnected electronic devices will be built into our offices, homes, cars, appliances, roads, shopping malls, and elsewhere, and we will carry a wide variety of them around with us as well.

Chipmaking challenges abound. We will need faster processors to handle dynamic graphics and video, more memory to store images as well as text, and transmission systems that can move large amounts of information reliably and at great speed. Combining high performance with low cost for consumer gear means small die sizes, forcing circuit shrinks while chipmakers look to copper interconnects and low-k dielectrics for higher speed. Portability means low power to extend battery life, forcing voltages lower. System-on-a-chip solutions will require logic, processors, analog-digital circuits, and memory, all on the same die.

While today our industry is manufacturing the devices needed to support the infrastructure build-up, in the future demand will grow to support a variety of new electronic gear, most with network links. Rather than picture phones, which never caught on, we will have flat displays capturing useful combinations of text with embedded graphics, animation, and video. We will be able to do group planning, or play electronic games interactively across the network. The information we need will be out there in cyberspace, much more easily found and accessed, by cable or wireless, perhaps with some small charges along the way.

As it becomes more convenient and less costly to use these devices, and a much richer array of content and services can be tapped or interchanged for a myriad of purposes, the revolution will become pervasive. The change will be tremendous, and so will the opportunities - and the competition. No matter who wins, though, the builders will need more, more, and MORE semiconductors! n