The Route
The EIPC Winter Conference in February was revealing for several reasons, not the least of which was that the view among the 125 primarily European electronics engineers and executives in attendance was their industry and governments had failed them by not acting more swiftly and vigorously to staunch the offshoring tide.
Analysis of artificial intelligence’s place in the world is as ubiquitous (and occasionally, insufferable) as those chatbots cluttering up many businesses’ websites. Not unironically, then, am I adding to the din.
Many years ago, in The Dark Knight, Batman’s nemesis the Joker famously observed that nobody panics when things go “according to plan – even if the plan is horrifying.” It’s when the unexpected happens that chaos erupts.
Another Productronica has come and gone. What did we learn?
That the biggest trend – besides the ubiquitous white sneakers attendees wore – was size. (Glass-free substrates were a close second.) More on that in a moment.
When it comes to the recent or pending investment in the US, some are interested in the company names – TSMC, Samsung, Wistron, Pegatron.
I’m more curious about the technologies they might bring.
Reason is, all the capital investment in the world won’t matter if you don’t have the personnel to operate the factories.
Or maybe not.
Magnetic transistors have been a hot topic for years, but a breakthrough led by researchers at MIT with chromium sulfur bromide (CrSBr) could push us closer to realizing more energy-efficient and powerful electronics. By replacing silicon with this 2D magnetic material, researchers have overcome a significant hurdle: combining the benefits of magnetism and semiconductor properties in a single device.
